Method for producing different products on a single production line

ABSTRACT

Methods for simultaneously producing different products on a single production line are disclosed. The method may be used to produce different fluent products and other types of products including assembled products. In some cases, the method includes providing a plurality of articles which are components of the products to be produced. The method further involves providing a track system and a plurality of vehicles for the articles. At least some of the vehicles may be independently routable around the track system. The method further includes simultaneously sending one article-loaded vehicle to a unit operation station where a step in the production of a product is performed and another article-loaded vehicle to a unit operation station where a step in the production of a different product is performed.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The systems and methods described below generally relate to a tracksystem and methods for simultaneously producing different products on asingle production line.

BACKGROUND

Many types of systems and methods for producing various products arecurrently in use. Many current types of manufacturing processes are massproduction processes that are designed to produce large quantities of asingle type of product on a large scale on one or more manufacturinglines. While such manufacturing lines generally serve the purpose ofmaking a single type of product very well, these manufacturing lines arenot well suited to make different types of products, or for makingchanges to a given product. To provide consumers with a diverse productline, a manufacturer must employ many different high speed manufacturinglines which can be expensive and space intensive. Alternatively, amanufacturer has to stop production on a manufacturing line to makechanges to the same in order to make changes to a product. Suchchangeovers are often time consuming and expensive due to the associatedequipment downtime.

For example, high speed container filling systems are well known andused in many different industries. In many of the systems, fluids aresupplied to containers to be filled through a series of pumps,pressurized tanks and flow meters, fluid filling nozzles, and/or valvesto help ensure the correct amount of fluid is dispensed into thecontainers. These high speed container filling systems are typicallysystems that are configured to only fill one type of container with onetype of fluid. When a different container type and/or different fluid isdesired from the system, the configuration of the system must be changed(e.g., different nozzles, different carrier systems, etc.) which can betime consuming, costly, and can result in increased downtimes.

These high speed container filling systems are also typically incapableof providing different containers and arrangements of containers in apackage without manual handling of the containers and/or packaging whichcan be time consuming, expensive, and frequently inaccurate.

Thus, it would be advantageous to provide a system and method ofproducing products that are versatile and can produce different productssimultaneously on a single production line. It would also beadvantageous to provide a system and a method that allows for on-demandfulfillment of orders without requiring manual packing.

SUMMARY

Systems and methods for simultaneously producing different products on asingle production line are disclosed.

The systems and methods can be used to produce any suitable type ofproduct. Such products can comprise fluent products or assembledproducts. Several non-limiting examples of systems and methods forproducing fluent products and assembled products are summarized below.

The systems and methods utilize an automated track system and aplurality of vehicles, at least some of which may be independentlyroutable along the track system. The track system comprises a primarytransport path and at least one secondary transport path. A plurality ofarticles are provided which comprise at least a first article and asecond article. The first and second articles comprise components of theproducts to be produced. At least some of the vehicles may beindependently routable along the track system to deliver the first andsecond articles to at least one of at least two unit operation stations.

In some embodiments, one article-loaded vehicle is simultaneously sentto a unit operation station where a step in the production of a productis performed and another one of said article-loaded vehicles to a unitoperation station where a step in the production of a different productis performed.

In another embodiment, a system for making fluent products is providedwhich comprises a plurality of containers for holding a fluent material,a plurality of vehicles for containers, and a track system comprising atrack on which container-loaded vehicles are propellable. The tracksystem comprises a primary transport portion that defines a primary pathcomprised of track that forms a closed loop that is configured to permitat least one container-loaded vehicle to travel in a holding pattern.The track system further comprises at least one secondary transportportion that extends from the primary transport portion and defines asecondary path that intersects the primary path at an ingress locationand at an egress location. The system also comprises at least one unitoperation station disposed along a secondary transport portionconfigured to perform a container treatment operation on at least onecontainer or the contents thereof, of a container-loaded vehicle. Theplurality of container-loaded vehicles are independently routable alongthe track system to deliver at least some of the containers to the atleast one unit operation station for performing a container treatmentoperation on at least some of the containers.

In another embodiment, a system for making fluent products is providedwhich comprises a plurality of first containers, a plurality of secondcontainers, a track system, at least two unit operation stationsdisposed along the track system, and a plurality of vehicles propellablealong the track system. Each of the plurality of first containers has ashape, and appearance, an opening, and a volume for holding a fluentmaterial. Each of the plurality of second containers has a shape, anappearance, an opening, and a volume for holding a fluent material. Oneor more of the shape, appearance, and the volume of each of the secondcontainers is different from one or more of the shape, appearance, andthe volume, respectively, of each of the first containers. One or moreof the first containers and one or more of the second containers aredisposed on respective vehicles, and the one or more first containersand second containers are empty at the time they first become disposedon respective vehicles. The plurality of vehicles are routable along thetrack system to facilitate simultaneous delivery of the first containersand the second containers to different unit operation stations.

In another embodiment, a system for making fluent products is providedwhich comprises at least one container for holding a fluent material, atrack system, a plurality of unit operation stations, and a plurality ofvehicles propellable along the track system. The container has at leastone opening and at least one closure is provided for selectively sealingthe opening(s) of the container. One of the plurality of unit operationstations is disposed along the track system and configured to dispensefluent material into a container. Each container is disposed on arespective vehicle, and the plurality of vehicles are independentlyroutable along the track system to deliver at least one container and atleast one closure to at least one unit operation station for applying aclosure onto a container.

In another embodiment, a system for making fluent products is providedwhich comprises at least one first container and at least one secondcontainer for holding a fluent material, a track system, at least oneunit operation station for dispensing fluent material disposed along thetrack system, and a plurality of vehicles propellable along the tracksystem. A first container and a second container are disposed on thesame or different vehicles. Each vehicle is independently routable alongthe track system to deliver the first and second containers to the atleast one unit operation station. The first container and the secondcontainer receive one or more fluent materials dispensed by one or morefilling unit operation stations, wherein the filling unit operationstations are configured to dispense fluent material so that the firstand second fluent compositions in the first and second containers differfrom one another. The first and second fluent compositions may differ inone or more of the following ways. There may be a difference in thepresence or type of at least one ingredient in the fluent composition inthe first container and that the fluent composition in the secondcontainer. In addition, or alternatively, the fluent compositions in thefirst and second containers have at least one common ingredient, and atleast one of the following relationships is present: (a) the differencein weight percentage of the same ingredient in the two fluentcompositions is greater than or equal to about 1.1 as determined bydividing the weight percent of the ingredient that is present in thegreater amount in the two fluent compositions by the weight percent ofthe same ingredient that is present in the lesser amount in the twofluent compositions; and (b) when the weight percentage of at least oneof the ingredients common to both the first and second containers ispresent in the two fluent composition in an amount of at least 2%, andthe difference of the weight percent of the same ingredient in the twofluent compositions is greater than or equal to 2%.

In another embodiment, a system for making fluent products is providedwhich comprises a plurality of containers for holding a fluent material,a track system, a plurality of unit operation stations disposed alongthe track system, and a plurality of vehicles propellable along thetrack system. Each container is disposed on one of the vehicles, andeach vehicle is independently routable along the track system to deliverthe containers to at least one operation station. At least some of thevehicles have associated therewith a unique route along the track systemassigned by a control system to facilitate simultaneous production ofdifferent finished products.

In another embodiment, a system for making fluent products is providedwhich comprises a plurality of containers for holding a fluent material,a plurality of vehicles for containers, a track system comprising atrack on which container-loaded vehicles are propellable, a plurality ofunit operation stations disposed along the track system and configuredto cooperate to create at least one finished product. Each container isdisposed on a vehicle, and the plurality of vehicles are independentlyroutable along the track system to deliver at least some of thecontainers to at least one unit operation station. The system furthercomprises a control system comprising one or more controller unitswhich: receives demand for finished products to be made; determines aroute for a vehicle, where said route is determined based on a status ofone or more unit operation stations; causes a vehicle to be propelled toprogress along said determined route so as to create one or more of saiddemanded finished products; and, delivers one or more finished productsto an unloading station.

In another embodiment, a method of producing different fluent productson a single production line is provided. The method comprises the stepsof: (a) providing a track system comprising a track on whichcontainer-loaded vehicles are propellable; (b) providing a plurality ofempty containers comprising a first container and a second container;(c) providing a plurality of vehicles; (d) loading the first and secondempty containers onto one or two vehicles; and (e) sending one of thecontainer-loaded vehicles to a filling unit operation station wherein afluent product is dispensed into the first container and another one ofthe container-loaded vehicles to a filling unit operation station wherea different fluent product is simultaneously dispensed into the secondcontainer. Steps (a)-(c) may occur in any suitable order.

In another embodiment, a system for making assembled products isprovided which comprises a holder on which a product will be assembled,a track system, a plurality of unit operation stations disposed alongthe track system configured to assemble components to create a finishedproduct, and a plurality of vehicles propellable along the track system.Each holder is disposed on one of the vehicles, and each vehicle may beindependently routable along the track system to deliver the holders toat least one unit operation station where an assembly operation isperformed. Components for assembly can be supplied to the unit operationstations by an external supply system or delivered by one of theplurality of vehicles.

In another embodiment, the first vehicle carrying the first article andthe second vehicle carrying the second article may be routable so that:the first vehicle carrying the first article is routable to form acustomized product; and the second vehicle carrying the second articleis routable in a separate stream of products from the first article toform a second stream of mass produced products.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

It is believed that certain embodiments will be better understood fromthe following description taken in conjunction with the accompanyingdrawings in which:

FIG. 1 is a schematic view depicting a track system having a track and acontrol system, in accordance with one embodiment.

FIG. 1A is a schematic view of a track system having an alternativeconfiguration.

FIG. 1B is a schematic view of a track system having another alternativeconfiguration.

FIG. 1C is a schematic view of a track system having another alternativeconfiguration.

FIG. 1D is a fragmented schematic view of a track system having anotheralternative configuration.

FIG. 1E is a fragmented schematic view of a portion of a track havingmultiple interface points between unit operation stations.

FIG. 1F is a schematic view of a track system having a plurality ofprimary transport loops.

FIG. 1G is a fragmented schematic view of a portion of a track systemhaving adjacent portions of track and an overpass bridging the outertrack.

FIG. 1H is a schematic view of a portion of a track system havingportions of track that are disposed in different planes.

FIG. 1I is a fragmented schematic view of a portion of a track systemhaving portions of track that are disposed in different planes and anelevator to transport articles therebetween.

FIG. 1J is a fragmented schematic view of a portion of a track systemhaving portions of track that are disposed in different planes, whereinthe lower portion of track is used to convey containers, and the upperportion of track is used to deliver closures for the containers.

FIG. 1K is a fragmented schematic view of a portion of a track systemhaving a curved section that can be rotated to select between differentsections of track on which to transport the vehicles.

FIG. 1L is a fragmented schematic view of a portion of a track systemhaving a rotatable platform for redirecting vehicles.

FIG. 2 is an exploded isometric view depicting a vehicle for the tracksystem of FIG. 1 associated with a container.

FIG. 3 is a side view of the vehicle of FIG. 2.

FIG. 4 is an isometric view depicting a straight portion of the track ofFIG. 1.

FIG. 5 is an isometric view depicting a curved portion of the track ofFIG. 1.

FIG. 6 is an isometric view depicting a transition portion of the trackof FIG. 1.

FIG. 7 is an isometric view depicting a filling/capping station of thetrack of FIG. 1.

FIG. 8 is an enlarged schematic view of a secondary transport portion,in accordance with another embodiment;

FIG. 9 is a schematic view of the control system of FIG. 1.

FIG. 10 is a flow chart depicting a Sequencing Phase of a controlroutine implemented by the control system of FIG. 1, according to oneembodiment.

FIG. 11 is a flow chart depicting a Demand Propagation Phase of thecontrol routine implemented by the control system of FIG. 1, accordingto one embodiment.

FIG. 12 is a flow chart depicting an Effective Route IdentificationPhase of the control routine implemented by the control system of FIG.1, according to one embodiment.

FIGS. 13A and 13B are flow charts depicting parts of a Route RankingPhase of the control routine implemented by the control system of FIG.1, according to one embodiment.

FIG. 14 is a schematic view of a track system used for making assembledproducts.

FIG. 15 is a schematic side view of a vehicle carrying an assembledproduct.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION Definitions

The term “article”, as used herein, refers to a product, a package, alabel, or any portion, component, or partially formed part of any of theforegoing. In the case of fluent products, the article may comprise acontainer and/or its contents. When there are multiple articles, theymay be referred to as a first article, a second article, a thirdarticle, etc.

The term “assembled products”, as used herein, refers to products thatare formed by assembling (that is, mechanically joining) differentcomponents to form a complete article. As used herein, the filling ofcontainers with fluent products, labeling such containers, and applyingclosures to the same, are not considered to cause fluent products to be“assembled products” since the fluent product itself is not formed bymechanically joining components together.

The term “capping”, as used herein, refers to applying any suitable typeof closure to a container, and includes but is not limited to applying acap to a container.

The term “constraints”, as used herein as in “constraints on arriving atone or more unit operation stations”, refers to limitations orrestrictions on a vehicle arriving at one or more unit operationstations. Examples of constraints on arriving at one or more unitoperation stations include: the infeed queue not being full; andrequirements that one or more containers arrive before one or more othercontainers in order to form a specific package.

The term “consumer”, as used herein, refers to an intended user of aproduct.

The term “consumer product”, as used herein, includes, but is notlimited to consumable products that are regularly and frequentlyconsumed by a consumer and need to be replenished. Components ofconsumer products that comprise one or more components that are lessfrequently consumed (such as razor blade handles) and components thatare more frequently replenished (such as razor blades) are together andalone considered to comprise consumer products. The term “consumerproduct” may include those known in the industry as “fast movingconsumer goods” (FMCG's). The term “consumer product” may, in somecases, be specified as excluding durable consumer products (such asshoes and textile goods that are intended to be worn and reworn). Eventhough prescription pharmaceuticals are consumed on a frequent basis, insome cases, the term “consumer products” may be specified as excludingprescription pharmaceuticals.

The term “container”, as used herein, refers to an article that iscapable of holding a material, such as a fluent material, and includes,but is not limited to bottles, unit dose pods, pouches, sachets, boxes,packages, cans, and cartons. The containers can have a rigid,flexi-resilient, or flexible structure in whole or in part.

The term “container-loaded”, as used herein, means having one or morecontainers disposed thereon.

The term “container treatment operation”, as used herein, refers to oneor more of the following unit operations: (a) a filling operationstation for dispensing fluent material into a container; (b) adecorating operation; and (c) a capping operation. The term “containertreatment operation” does not include the operations of loading and/orunloading containers onto the vehicles. When the term “containertreatment operation” is said to be performed on a container-loadedvehicle, it is understood that the operation can be performed on thecontainer and/or its contents, as appropriate.

The term “customer”, as used herein, refers to a distributor, or aretailer such as a store, or a chain of stores.

The term “customized product(s)”, as used herein, refers to articlesthat have properties and/or features that are selected by a customer orconsumer, and then (thereafter) the articles are produced with thecustomer or consumer's choices of properties and/or features. Customizedproducts are distinguishable from mass produced products (definedbelow). The properties or features can include, but are not limited to:the size or quantity of a product (but at least one other property orfeature should be combined with size or quantity in order to qualify asa customized product and be distinguishable from a manufacturer's usualmass production (e.g., volume or count) product offerings of a product;the version of a product (e.g., “high intensity”, “for dry hair”, “foroily hair”, etc.); SKU number; the decoration, label, or image on aproduct, container, or package; name to be placed on the product,container, or package, which can be the name of the product and/or user(e.g., “Dad's laundry”, person's given name selected from a list ofcommon given names, etc.); the color of the product; and for fluentproducts any of the foregoing as applicable, as well as the formulation,scent, container type, container shape, color of the container,decoration on the container, and closure and/or dispenser type. Thecustomer or consumer can also be provided with the choice to have theproduct be free of certain properties or features (e.g., no scent, nobleach, etc.) The properties and/or features can be selected from apre-defined (limited) number of options (that is, from a pick list)provided by the manufacturer. Alternatively, the customer or consumercan be provided with the ability to select properties and/or featuresfrom a substantially unlimited number of possible options (to createpersonalized products, defined below). The term “customized product(s)”includes both non-personalized products and personalized products. Insome cases, it may be desirable to exclude one of more of the foregoingproperties or features when referring to “customized products”.

The term “decoration”, as used herein, refers to a visual, tactile, orolfactory effect applied by means of material deposition that is applieddirectly, or transferred to an article, or by transforming a property ofan article, or combinations thereof. Examples of a material depositionthat is applied directly to an article include, but are not limited toapplying a label to an article (labelling), and/or printing and/orspray-coating at least a portion of the article or on a component of anarticle. An example of transforming a property of an article withouttransferring a material to the surface of the article is imparting animage on the surface of an article by a laser. The term “decorating”, asused herein, refers to the act of applying a decoration.

The term “different finished products”, as used herein with respect tofluent products, includes, but is not limited to: differing in containervolume, container shape, container size, contained material volume ormass, contained ingredients, contained fluent product composition,container or closure appearance, closure type, container composition,closure composition, or other finished product attribute. The“appearance” of a container (and a closure) refers to its color, and anydecoration thereon including any label or label contents thereon. Theterm “different finished products”, as used herein with respect toassembled products, includes, but is not limited to: differing inappearance; the presence or absence of a feature (e.g., personalization)or in the presence or absence of a component (e.g., whether the productis provided with an optional component); differing in the componentscomprising the product (e.g., one product may have components A, B, andC, and another product may have components A, B, and C′; or A, B, andD); or, other finished product attribute. When the finished products aredescribed as differing from each other in one of more of the foregoingproperties, it is meant to include those differences other than minordifferences that are the result of variations within manufacturingtolerances.

The term “different fluent products”, as used herein, means differing inat least one property such as: state (e.g., liquid, solid, ornon-headspace gas), differing amounts of one or more states of matter inthe fluent products, differences in ingredients, differing amounts ofone or more ingredients in the fluent products, observable properties(as perceived or measured by an observer such as color, scent,viscosity), particle size of any solid particles, and other properties.When the fluent products are described as differing from each other inone or more of the foregoing properties, it is meant to include thosedifferences other than minor differences that are the result ofvariations within manufacturing tolerances. With respect to differencesbetween two different fluent products based on their respectiveingredient(s), it means when one of the two fluent products comprises aningredient that is absent from the other fluent product. With respect todiffering amounts of at least one same ingredient in two differentfluent products, it means when the two different fluent products eachcontain the at least one same ingredient with a minimum or greaterdifference based on weight, as determined by one or both of thefollowing methods. Both methods rely on knowledge of the proportion ofsaid same ingredient in each different formula as a weight percent ofthe total fluent product weight of the total amount fluent product(s)contained with each fluent product's respective container associatedwith their respective finished product.

Method 1 determines that two fluent products are different if the ratioof the weight percent of the same ingredient in the two fluent productsis greater than or equal to about 1.1 (and, thus, greater than or equalto about 1.25) as determined by dividing the weight percent that is thegreater of the two fluent products by the weight percent that is thelesser of the two fluent products. Method 2 applies to when the weightpercent of the same ingredients are each present in each of the fluentmaterials is minimally equal to or greater than 2% (as expressed as aweight percent) and the difference of the weight percent of the sameingredient in the two fluent products is about equal or greater than 2%,or any integer % value up to and including 99%, as determined bysubtracting the weight percent that is the greater of the two fluentproducts by the weight percent that is the lesser of the two fluentproducts. Different fluent products refer to the entirety of the weightsum of fluent product(s) contained within a finished product wherein thefluent product(s) may be contained within one or multiple fluentproduct-containing chambers. Non-headspace gas refers to pressurized gasof which examples include: propellant gas such as for aerosol productsand pressurized gas for a sealed chamber to provide structural supportor shape definition to a container.

The terms “disposed on” or “disposed thereon”, as used herein withreference to the articles on the vehicles (such as containers oncontainer-loaded vehicles), means any of the following: held by, affixedto, or otherwise coupled to in a removable manner. When the articles(such as containers) are described as being disposed on the vehicles,the article(s) can be in any suitable orientation with respect to thevehicles including, but not limited to: on top of the vehicles,underneath the vehicles, adjacent to one or more of the sides of thevehicles, or (if there are more than one article disposed on a vehicle)any combinations thereof.

The term “fast cycle”, with respect to stations, refers to inspectionstations, such as weighing stations, scanners (e.g., for scanning barcodes, QR codes, RFID codes, etc.), vision systems, metal detectors, andother types of stations in which the task performed at such stations arecarried out in a minimal amount of time relative to at least some otherunit operation stations.

The term “finished product”, as used herein, refers to a product in itsfinal form or condition for delivery to a customer or consumer. In thecase of products that require assembly (assembled products), suchproducts will be completely assembled and have any desired decorationsthereon. Such finished assembled products may include any primarypackaging in which the product is typically placed on a customer's storeshelf in a retail environment. In the case of fluent products, suchproducts will be finished fluent products as defined below.

The term “finished fluent product”, as used herein, comprises acontainer, the fluent material (or contents) therein, any decoration onthe container, and the closure on the container. Finished fluentproducts may in part or whole be flowable or fluent.

The term “fluent product” (or “fluent material”), as used herein, refersto any of the following: liquid products, gels, slurries, flowablepastes, pourable solid products (including, but not limited to granularmaterials, powders, beads, and pods), and/or gaseous products(including, but not limited to those used in aerosols).

The term “holding pattern”, as used herein, means that at least one(empty) vehicle or article transporting vehicle (such as acontainer-loaded vehicle) travels past at least one point on a closedloop (of a main closed loop or sub-loop) twice while traveling in thesame direction without an intervening trip in the opposite directionpast said point. In addition, the term “holding pattern” means that thearticle transporting vehicle also does not unload an article orcomponent thereof (and in the case of a container-loaded vehicle, doesnot unload a container) in between passing through the point twice.Thus, a typical operation of recirculating a vehicle to make a secondproduct after using the vehicle to make a first product would not beconsidered moving the vehicle in a holding pattern. When it is said thata container is “empty”, the container will be considered to be emptyeven though it contains atmospheric air therein.

The term “infeed queue”, as used herein, refers to an area wherevehicles wait for a unit operation station to become ready to receivethe vehicles. The infeed queue can be expressed in terms of a length oftrack or a number of vehicles that can be queued in this area. Differentunit operation stations may either have the same or different infeedqueue lengths. Therefore, the queue lengths of some unit operationstations may be shorter or longer than the queue lengths at other unitoperation stations. The infeed queue can (if using the number ofvehicles) range from 0 (if no vehicles are able to wait in front of agiven vehicle), up to hundreds of vehicles. In some cases, the queuelength may be between about 2-10 vehicles.

The term “inspection”, as used herein, may include any of the following:scanning; weighing; detecting the presence or orientation of an article(which may be a component of a product; or, in the case of fluentproducts, the article may be a container); detecting defects or faults,detecting wear and tear on equipment and/or vehicles; or, other types ofinspection. Inspections may be performed by weighing stations, scanners(e.g., for scanning bar codes, QR codes, RFID codes, etc.), visionsystems, metal detectors, and other types of stations or devices.

The term “interface point”, as used herein, refers to a specificlocation on a track. The interface point location is pre-selected, forthe purpose of the product scheduling controller. In some embodiments,exactly one (a single) interface point can be defined along the trackbetween adjacent unit operation station groups, such that it could besaid that a unit operation station group has an upstream interface pointlocated between the unit operation stations of the unit operationstation group and the unit operation stations of an upstream unitoperation station group, and that a unit operation station group has adownstream interface point located between the unit operation stationsof the unit operation station group and the unit operation stations of adownstream unit operation station group. As an example, the unitoperation stations 86 of FIG. 1 comprise a unit operation station group.This unit operation station group has an upstream interface point 12(FIG. 1) and a downstream interface point 13 (FIG. 1). Elaborating onthe same example, the unit operation stations 88 of FIG. 1 comprise asecond unit operation station group. The second unit operation stationgroup has an upstream interface point 13 (FIG. 1) and a downstreaminterface point 14 (FIG. 1). Thus, an interface point may serve as botha downstream interface point for a first unit operation station groupand an upstream interface point for a second unit operation stationgroup. Interface points need not (and often do not) correspond to thelocation of ingress or egress switches. Interface points may be oneither the primary transport path or the secondary transport path(s). Inother embodiments, the delineation between adjacent unit operationstation groups may comprise a plurality of interface points, such thatevery possible span of track connecting the unit operation stationgroups has exactly one interface point defined upon the span of track,and that there exists no span of track connecting adjacent unitoperation station groups where there has been no interface pointdefined. For example, FIG. 1E shows a section of track having multipleinterface points P1 between fillers 86A and cappers 86B where fillers86A and cappers 86B are on the same “rung” of a unit transport segment91. In embodiments where there exists more than one interface pointdefined between adjacent unit operation station groups, it isadvantageous to configure the system such that a unit operation stationis located such that a vehicle will always visit a specific interfacepoint upstream of the unit operation station, and a specific interfacepoint downstream of the unit operation station. Such specific interfacepoints need not be the same interface point for all unit operationstations in a given unit operation station group, but a given unitoperation station should have a single upstream interface point visitedby vehicles prior to arrival at the unit operation station, and a singledownstream interface point visited by vehicles after arrival at the unitoperation station. It should furthermore be noted that in any embodimentan upstream or downstream interface point need not be positioned anyparticular distance away from the unit operation station, so it ispossible for an upstream or downstream interface point to be at thelocation of a unit operation station, such that it is considered“upstream” or “downstream” only in a logical sense, but not in aphysical layout sense. It should be noted that the embodiment of therebeing only a single interface point defined between adjacent unitoperation station groups and the embodiment of there being more than oneinterface point defined between adjacent unit operation station groupsneed not be mutually exclusive, such that in the same system someadjacent unit operation station groups may have a single interface pointdefined between them, and other adjacent unit operation station groupsin the same system may have multiple interface points defined betweenthem.

The term “intermixed”, as used herein to describe the system and methodof production, refers to production that takes place on the same system(e.g., manufacturing line) during a period of time (e.g.,simultaneously). The term “intermixed” production includes producingdifferent finished products, or any parts or portions thereof, on thesame track system during a period of time. For example, an intermixedproduction may comprise producing on the same manufacturing line productA and product B, which comprise different finished products. Theproducts may be at the same stage of completion, or at different stagesof completion at any given time during production. At any given time,the manufacturing line may be producing products A and products B in anysequence and producing an output of such products in any sequence (e.g.,ABA; ABBA; etc.). The intermixed production is not limited to producingtwo different finished products. The intermixed production can make anysuitable number of different products (e.g., products A, B, C, D, etc.)from two different products up to a virtually unlimited number ofdifferent products in any sequence (e.g., products A, B, and C; or,products A, B, and G). Such different possible products, ifpersonalized, could number as many as 10,000, or more up to 10 million,or more. The term “intermixed” production, thus, does not include: (1)manufacturing different finished products on differentproduction/manufacturing lines (at either the same or at differentmanufacturing sites); or (2) making one product, product A, on amanufacturing line, and changing over the manufacturing line to stopproduction of product A to make product B (sequential change overs).Such sequential changeovers that do not comprise “intermixed” productionare those where such changeovers occur no more often than at intervalsgreater than every few (e.g., 3) minutes.

The term “joined to” as used throughout this disclosure, encompassesconfigurations in which an element is directly secured to anotherelement by affixing the element directly to the other element;configurations in which the element is indirectly secured to the otherelement by affixing the element to intermediate member(s) which in turnare affixed to the other element; and configurations in which oneelement is integral with another element, i.e., one element isessentially part of the other element.

The terms “mass production”, “mass produced”, and the like, as usedherein, refer to an automated or semi-automated process in which atleast hundreds (and in some cases thousands) of the same product areproduced on a given day. As used in the definition of “mass production”and “mass produced”, the “same product” refers to multiple copies of aversion of a product that is the same in all material aspects (size,shape, decoration, etc.), with the exception of any variations withinmanufacturing tolerances, serialization code, or expiration dates. Massproduced products have characteristics that are chosen by themanufacturer or producer of the products, rather than by that specificproduct's customer or consumer. Typically, mass produced products areproduced before a customer or consumer selects or places an order forthe same.

The term “non-personalized customized products”, as used herein, refersto customized products that are not personalized products (as definedbelow). Thus, non-personalized customized products are those in whichthe properties and/or features can be selected from a pre-defined(limited) number of options (that is, from a pick list) provided by themanufacturer.

The term “operation”, as used herein with respect to an activity thatoccurs at a unit operation station, includes transformations andinspections.

The term “packaging”, as used herein, means a structure or material thatis at least partially disposed on or about a consumer product. “Primarypackaging”, in the case of fluent products, for example, means thecontainer in which the consumer product is in direct contact andincludes its closure, pump, cap, or other peripheral items. “Primarypackaging”, in the case of assembled products, for example, means thebox, blister pack, or other package in direct contact with the consumerproduct in which the product is typically provided to place the producton a customer's store shelf in a retail environment. “Secondarypackaging” means any additional materials that are associated with theprimary packaging, such as, for example, a container such as a box orpolymeric sleeve that at least partially surrounds, contains, orcontacts the primary packaging.

The term “personalized products”, as used herein, refers to articlesthat are uniquely customized and have properties and/or features thatare selected by a customer or consumer from a substantially unlimitednumber of possible options, and then (thereafter) the articles areproduced with the customer or consumer's choices of properties and/orfeatures. Thus, personalized products are typically made (or partiallymade and then completed) after being selected by a customer or consumer.Some examples of properties and/or features of personalized productsinclude, but are not limited to: for liquid products, the additive(s)added to the product where the customer or consumer is able to definethe weight percentage of the additive(s) from any percentage from 0%(e.g., no dye) to less than 100%, with a virtually unlimited number ofdecimal places (but typically up to about 3 decimal places); the colorof the product or a portion thereof selected from any combination of afull color gamut; a scent of a product selected by mixing scents in anydesired amount and combinations; adding a decoration supplied by acustomer or consumer (such as a picture supplied by a customer orconsumer, matching a consumer's wall paper, etc.); and, adding acustomer's or consumer's text (e.g., name or other desired wording) tothe article, container, package, or label. The customer or consumer'spicture may be provided in any suitable form including, but not limitedto digitally. In some cases, it may be desirable to exclude one of moreof the foregoing properties or features when referring to “personalizedproducts”.

The term “plurality”, as used herein, means more than one.

The phrase “preparing a product for distribution”, as used herein, meansplacing one or more products into groups and/or containers (e.g.,secondary packaging and/or shipping containers) for shipment to acustomer, a consumer, or a warehouse.

The term “products”, as used herein, means any type of product that issold or provided to a consumer or customer across a variety ofindustries. The term “products” includes assembled products and fluentproducts. The following products can take any product form describedherein or known in the art.

Non-limiting examples of consumer products include: baby care products(e.g. soaps, shampoos, and lotions); beauty care products for cleaning,treating, beautifying, and/or decorating human or animal hair (e.g. hairshampoos, hair conditioners, hair dyes, hair colorants, hair repairproducts, hair growth products, hair removal products, hair minimizationproducts, etc.); beauty care products for cleaning, treating,beautifying, and/or decorating human or animal skin (e.g. soaps, bodywashes, body scrubs, facial cleansers, astringents, sunscreens, sunblock lotions, lip balms, cosmetics, skin conditioners, cold creams,skin moisturizers, antiperspirants, deodorants, etc.); beauty careproducts for cleaning, treating, beautifying, and/or decorating human oranimal nails (e.g. nail polishes, nail polish removers, etc.); groomingproducts for cleaning, treating, beautifying, and/or decorating humanfacial hair (e.g. shaving products, pre-shaving products, after shavingproducts, etc.); health care products for cleaning, treating,beautifying, and/or decorating human or animal oral cavities (e.g.toothpaste, mouthwash, breath freshening products, anti-plaque products,tooth whitening products, etc.); health care products for treating humanand/or animal health conditions (e.g. medicines, medicaments,pharmaceuticals, vitamins, nutraceuticals, nutrient supplements (forcalcium, fiber, etc.), cough treatment products, cold remedies,lozenges, treatments for respiratory and/or allergy conditions, painrelievers, sleep aids, gastrointestinal treatment products (forheartburn, upset stomach, diarrhea, irritable bowel syndrome, etc.),purified water, treated water, etc.); pet care products for feedingand/or caring for animals (e.g. pet food, pet vitamins, pet medicines,pet chews, pet treats, etc.); fabric care products for cleaning,conditioning, refreshing and/or treating fabrics, clothes and/or laundry(e.g. laundry detergents, fabric conditioners, fabric dyes, fabricbleaches, etc.); dish care products for home, commercial, and/orindustrial use (e.g. dish soaps and rinse aids for hand-washing and/ormachine washing); cleaning and/or deodorizing products for home,commercial, and/or industrial use (e.g. soft surface cleaners, hardsurface cleaners, glass cleaners, ceramic tile cleaners, carpet cleaner,wood cleaners, multi-surface cleaners, surface disinfectants, kitchencleaners, bath cleaners (e.g. sink, toilet, tub, and/or showercleaners), appliance cleaning products, appliance treatment products,car cleaning products, car deodorizing products, air cleaners, airdeodorizers, air disinfectants, etc.), and the like. If desired certainof these products including, but not limited to fabric care products,dish care products, and personal care products may include beadscomprised of any suitable material for any suitable purpose.

Further examples of products include those that are intended to be usedacross additional areas of home, commercial, and/or industrial, buildingand/or grounds, construction and/or maintenance, including any of thefollowing products: products for establishing, maintaining, modifying,treating, and/or improving lawns, gardens, and/or grounds (e.g. grassseeds, vegetable seeds, plant seeds, birdseed, other kinds of seeds,plant food, fertilizer, soil nutrients and/or soil conditions (e.g.nitrogen, phosphate, potash, lime, etc.), soil sterilants, herbicides,weed preventers, pesticides, pest repellents, insecticides, insectrepellents, etc.); products for landscaping use (e.g. top soils, pottingsoils, general use soils, mulches, wood chips, tree bark nuggets, sands,natural stones and/or rocks (e.g. decorative stones, pea gravel, gravel,etc.) of all kinds, man-made compositions based on stones and rocks(e.g. paver bases, etc.)); products for starting and/or fueling fires ingrills, fire pits, fireplaces, etc. (e.g. fire logs, fire startingnuggets, charcoal, lighter fluid, matches, etc.); lighting products(e.g. light bulbs and light tubes or all kinds including: incandescents,compact fluorescents, fluorescents, halogens, light emitting diodes, ofall sizes, shapes, and uses); chemical products for construction,maintenance, remodeling, and/or decorating (e.g. concretes, cements,mortars, mix colorants, concrete curers/sealants, concrete protectants,grouts, blacktop sealants, crack filler/repair products, spackles, jointcompounds, primers, paints, stains, topcoats, sealants, caulks,adhesives, epoxies, drain cleaning/declogging products, septic treatmentproducts, etc.); chemical products (e.g. thinners, solvents, andstrippers/removers including alcohols, mineral spirits, turpentines,linseed oils, etc.); water treatment products (e.g. water softeningproducts such as salts, bacteriostats, fungicides, etc.); fasteners ofall kinds (e.g. screws, bolts, nuts, washers, nails, staples, tacks,hangers, pins, pegs, rivets, clips, rings, and the like, for usewith/in/on wood, metal, plastic, concrete, concrete, etc.); and thelike.

Further examples of products include those that are intended to be usedacross the food and beverage industry, including any of the followingproducts: foods such as basic ingredients (e.g. grains such as rice,wheat, corn, beans, and derivative ingredients made from any of these,as well as nuts, seeds, and legumes, etc.), cooking ingredients (e.g.sugar, spices such as salt and pepper, cooking oils, vinegars, tomatopastes, natural and artificial sweeteners, flavorings, seasonings,etc.), baking ingredients (e.g. baking powders, starches, shortenings,syrups, food colorings, fillings, gelatins, chocolate chips and otherkinds of chips, frostings, sprinkles, toppings, etc.), dairy foods (e.g.creams, yogurts, sour creams, wheys, caseins, etc.), spreads (e.g. jams,jellies, etc.), sauces (e.g. barbecue sauces, salad dressings, tomatosauces, etc.), condiments (e.g. ketchups, mustards, relishes,mayonnaises, etc.), processed foods (noodles and pastas, dry cereals,cereal mixes, premade mixes, snack chips and snacks and snack mixes ofall kinds, pretzels, crackers, cookies, candies, chocolates of allkinds, marshmallows, puddings, etc.); beverages such as water, milks,juices, flavored and/or carbonated beverages (e.g. soda), sports drinks,coffees, teas, spirits, alcoholic beverages (e.g. beer, wine, etc.),etc.; and ingredients for making or mixing into beverages (e.g. coffeebeans, ground coffees, cocoas, tea leaves, dehydrated beverages, powdersfor making beverages, natural and artificial sweeteners, flavorings,etc.). Further, prepared foods, fruits, vegetables, soups, meats,pastas, microwavable and or frozen foods as well as produce, eggs, milk,and other fresh foods.

Further examples of products include those that are intended to be usedacross the medical industry, in the areas of medicines, medical devices,and medical treatment, including uses for receiving, containing, storingand/or dispensing, any of the following products, in any form known inthe art: bodily fluids from humans and/or animals (e.g. amniotic fluid,aqueous humour, vitreous humour, bile, blood, blood plasma, blood serum,breast milk, cerebrospinal fluid, cerumen (earwax), chyle, chime,endolymph (and perilymph), ejaculate, runny feces, gastric acid, gastricjuice, lymph, mucus (including nasal drainage and phlegm), pericardialfluid, peritoneal fluid, pleural fluid, pus, rheum, saliva, sebum (skinoil), semen, sputum, synovial fluid, tears, sweat, vaginal secretion,vomit, urine, etc.); fluids for intravenous therapy to human or animalbodies (e.g. volume expanders (e.g. crystalloids and colloids),blood-based products including blood substitutes, buffer solutions,liquid-based medications (which can include pharmaceuticals), parenteralnutritional formulas (e.g. for intravenous feeding, wherein suchformulas can include salts, glucose, amino acids, lipids, supplements,nutrients, and/or vitamins); other medicinal fluids for administering tohuman or animal bodies (e.g. medicines, medicaments, nutrients,nutraceuticals, pharmaceuticals, etc.) by any suitable method ofadministration (e.g. orally (in solid, liquid, or pill form), topically,intra-nasally, by inhalation, or rectally.

Further examples of products include those that are intended to be usedacross any and all industries that use internal combustion engines (suchas the transportation industry, the power equipment industry, the powergeneration industry, etc.), including vehicles and/or parts or productsfor vehicles such as cars, trucks, automobiles, boats, aircraft, etc.,containers useful for receiving, containing, storing, and/or dispensing,any of the following fluent products, in any form known in the art:engine oil, engine oil additives, fuel additives, brake fluids,transmission fluids, engine coolants, power steering fluids, windshieldwiper fluids, products for vehicle care (e.g. for body, tires, wheels,windows, trims, upholsteries, etc.), as well as other fluids configuredto clean, penetrate, degrease, lubricate, and/or protect one or moreparts of any and all kinds of engines, power equipment, and/ortransportation vehicles.

The products described herein can also be non-fluent products (orassembled products) including, but not limited to in any of thefollowing categories: Baby Care products, including disposable wearableabsorbent articles, diapers, training pants, infant and toddler carewipes, etc. and the like; Beauty Care products including applicators forapplying compositions to human or animal hair, skin, and/or nails, etc.and the like; Home Care products including wipes and scrubbers for allkinds of cleaning applications and the like; Family Care productsincluding wet or dry bath tissue, facial tissue, disposablehandkerchiefs, disposable towels, wipes, etc. and the like; FeminineCare products including catamenial pads, incontinence pads, interlabialpads, panty liners, pessaries, sanitary napkins, tampons, tamponapplicators, wipes, etc. and the like; Health Care products includingoral care products such as oral cleaning devices, dental floss, flossingdevices, toothbrushes, etc. and the like; Pet Care products includinggrooming aids, pet training aids, pet devices, pet toys, etc. and thelike; Portable Power products including electrochemical cells,batteries, battery current interrupters, battery testers, batterychargers, battery charge monitoring equipment, battery charge/dischargerate controlling equipment, “smart” battery electronics, flashlights,etc. and the like; Small Appliance Products including hair removalappliances (including, e.g. electric foil shavers for men and women,charging and/or cleaning stations, electric hair trimmers, electricbeard trimmers, electric epilator devices, cleaning fluid cartridges,shaving conditioner cartridges, shaving foils, and cutter blocks); oralcare appliances (including, e.g., electric toothbrushes with accumulatoror battery, refill brush heads, interdental cleaners, tongue cleaners,charging stations, electric oral irrigators, and irrigator clip onjets); small electric household appliances (including, e.g., coffeemakers, water kettles, hand blenders, hand mixers, food processors,steam cookers, juicers, citrus presses, toasters, coffee or meatgrinders, vacuum pumps, irons, steam pressure stations for irons and ingeneral non electric attachments therefore, hair care appliances(including, e.g., electric hair driers, hair stylers, hair curlers, hairstraighteners, cordless gas heated styler/irons and gas cartridgestherefore, and air filter attachments); personal diagnostic appliances(including, e.g., blood pressure monitors, ear thermometers, and lensfilters therefore); clock appliances and watch appliances (including,e.g., alarm clocks, travel alarm clocks combined with radios, wallclocks, wristwatches, and pocket calculators), etc. and the like.

In some cases, the term “products” may be further specified as excludingany one or more of the products, or categories of products, listedabove.

The term “propellable”, as used herein, means able to be propelled inany manner. Vehicles can be propellable, for example, by gravity, or bya propulsive force which may be mechanical, electrical, magnetic, orother form of propulsion.

The term “route”, as used herein, refers to an ordered list of unitoperation stations for an article transporting vehicle to visit andoperations to be completed at such unit operation stations in order tocreate finished products.

The term “semi-autonomous”, as used herein, refers to a process that hasboth automated operations and manual operations. For example, aproduction system may be automated with the exception of infeeding ofmaterials (e.g., empty containers) and/or removing finished articlesfrom the production line for packaging, one or both of which may be donemanually.

The term “simultaneous”, as used herein, not only means something thatstarts at the (exact) same time, but also something that may not startand/or end at the exact same time, but which takes place during the sametime frame. One or more of the following may be specified to occursimultaneously in the systems and methods described herein: the routingof vehicles; the delivery of different vehicles to unit operationstations; the carrying out of operations at the same or different unitoperation stations; the process of (or any steps in the process of)creating a plurality of (the same or different) finished products; and,in the case of fluent products, placing fluent compositions in the sametype of container or in different types of containers.

The term “stream of products”, as used herein, refers to a number ofproducts produced one after another.

The term “system”, as used herein with respect to the track, refers to a(single) network on which one or more article transporting vehicles canbe routed to one or more unit operations. The tracks and paths in asystem will, therefore, typically be joined (at least indirectly) toeach other. In contrast, separate unconnected processing lines in thesame building or facility, or in a different building or facility, wouldnot be considered to comprise a system. Thus, two unconnected fillinglines in the same building that are being operated to fill containerswith different fluids would not be considered to comprise a system.

The terms “transformation”, as used herein, includes physical, chemical,and biological changes to an article. Examples of transformationsinclude, but are not limited to: assembling components of a product(joining at least two components together), loading, dispensing,filling, mixing, capping, sealing, decorating, labelling, emptying,unloading, heating, cooling, pasteurizing, fermenting, sterilizing,wrapping, rotating or inverting, printing, cutting, separating, pausingto allow mechanical settling or mechanical separation or chemicalreaction, or etching. The term “transformation” does not includeinspection of an article.

The term “unique”, as used herein to modify the term “route”, means thenumber, type, or sequence of unit operation stations or operationscompleted at the unit operation stations differs from that of anotherarticle transporting vehicle. The term “unique” does not require thatthe number, type, or sequence of unit operation stations or operationscompleted at the unit operation stations differ from that of all articletransporting vehicles.

The term “unit operation station”, as used herein, means a locationwhere an article undergoes an operation which may be a transformation oran inspection. The types of transformations defined above may each becarried out at separate unit operation stations; or one or moretransformations and/or inspections may be described as one operationthat is carried out at a single unit operation station. In onenon-limiting example of the latter for fluent products, thetransformations of uncapping, filling, and capping could be carried outat a single filling/capping unit operation station.

All percentages and ratios of compositions are calculated by weight ofthe total composition, unless otherwise indicated.

Systems and methods for simultaneously producing different products on asingle production line are disclosed.

The systems and methods can be used to produce any suitable type ofproduct. Such products can comprise fluent products, assembled products,or any desired combinations thereof. Several non-limiting examples ofsystems and methods for producing fluent products and assembled productsare provided below.

The systems and methods utilize an automated track system and aplurality of vehicles, at least some of which may be independentlyroutable along the track system. The track system comprises a primarytransport path and at least one secondary transport path. A plurality ofarticles are provided which comprise at least a first article and asecond article. The first and second articles comprise components of theproducts to be produced. At least some of the vehicles may beindependently routable along the track system to deliver the first andsecond articles to at least one of at least two unit operation stations.

In connection with the views and examples of FIGS. 1-9 (including FIGS.1A to 1L), wherein like numbers indicate the same or correspondingelements throughout the views, a track system 20 is shown in FIG. 1 toinclude a track 22 and a plurality of vehicles 24 that are propellablealong the track 22. The track system 20 can comprise any suitable typeof system. In some embodiments, the track system 20 can be a linearsynchronous motor (LSM) based system that facilitates propulsion of thevehicles 24 along the track 22 using electromagnetic force (EMF). Inother embodiments, the track system can be a system in which thevehicles are propelled in some other manner, such as by individual servomotors. In the embodiment shown, however the vehicles are propelled by alinear synchronous motor (LSM) based system.

One of the vehicles 24 is illustrated in FIG. 2 and is shown to includean upper portion 26 and a lower portion 28 that are coupled together bya central rib 30. In one embodiment, the upper and lower portions 26, 28can be releasably coupled together with fasteners 32. The upper andlower portions 26, 28 can be spaced from each other by the central rib30. As illustrated in FIG. 3, the upper portion 26 can include a wearsurface or running surface 34 that is adjacent to the central rib 30 andfaces the lower portion 28. The lower portion 28 can include a magnet 36that facilitates LSM propulsion of the vehicle 24 along the track 22. Inone embodiment, the magnet 36 can be a magnet array having a centralmagnet that is formed of a south pole and sandwiched between two endsthat are each formed as a north pole. It is to be appreciated that thevehicles 24 can be any of a variety of suitable alternative arrangementsfor facilitating LSM propulsion along a track system. Some examples ofthese alternative arrangements are described in U.S. Pat. Nos.6,011,508; 6,101,952; 6,499,701; 6,578,495; 6,781,524; 6,917,136;6,983,701; 7,448,327; 7,458,454; and 9,032,880.

A container 38 can be provided on the vehicle 24 for routing of thecontainer 38 around the track 22 to facilitate filling of the container38 with fluent material and/or performing other operations on thecontainer and/or its contents. The container 38 can define at least oneopening 40 for receiving and dispensing fluent material. When it is saidthat the container has an opening 40, embodiments with multiple openings(such as multi-compartment containers with separate closures or a singleclosure, press-tab vent and dispenser containers, and the like) are alsoincluded. There can be multiple containers on a single vehicle, or ondifferent vehicles.

When there is more than one container on the track system 20, thecontainers 24 may be all of the same type or geometric form (that is,the containers are of the same size, shape, appearance, and have thesame volume), or any of the containers may differ from the other in oneor more of size, shape, appearance, or volume. When reference is made tothe “shape” of a container, it is understood that this means theexterior shape of the container. When reference is made to the “volume”of a container, it is understood that this means the interior volume ofthe container. The multiple containers can be identified as first,second, third, etc. containers. On the track system at any given time,more than two containers may differ and/or hold fluent materials thatdiffer from other containers. In some embodiments, there may be 3, 4, 5,6, 7, 8, 9, 10, or more, different types of containers, or groups ofdifferent types of containers (that may differ from each other incontainer type and/or in the fluent materials contained therein) thatare disposed along the track system at any given time. (The same appliesto different types of articles in the case of assembled productsdescribed below.)

A closure 42 can be joined to the container to close the opening 40until it is desired to dispense the product from the container (that is,the closure “selectively seals” the opening). Closures include, but arenot limited to: caps, such as snap caps, threaded-screw caps, capscomprising multiple parts like a hinge and top or a transition spout,drain-back caps, glued-on caps (such as those used on some laundrydetergent containers with spouts), caps that serve metering functionslike oral rinse caps, pumps or triggers, and aerosol nozzles. Theclosures have a shape, a size, and appearance. Similarly to thecontainers, the closures may all be of the same type, or any of theclosures may differ from others in one or more of type, shape, size, orappearance. The multiple closures can be identified as first, second,third, etc. closures.

The different vehicles 24 on the track at any given time may be the sameor different in size and/or type. In some embodiments, the vehicles 24may comprise vehicles known as “pucks” that are sold by MagneMotion ofDevens, Mass., U.S.A. The vehicles 24 can further comprise a holder forholding an article (such as container 38). The holder can be of anysuitable type or configuration. The holders can comprise mechanicalholders of any suitable size and configuration. In other embodiments,the holders can comprise a unique holder that operates by vacuum. Thedifferent vehicles 24 on the track at any given time may have holdersthat are the same or different in size and/or type.

In one embodiment, as shown in FIG. 2, the container 38 can bereleasably secured to the vehicle 24 by a vacuum holder via a vacuumport 44 defined by the upper portion 26 of the vehicle 24. In such anembodiment, when the container 38 is placed on the upper portion 26 ofthe vehicle 24, a vacuum can be drawn on the vacuum port 44 by drawing avacuum on a primary port 46. When the container 38 is provided over thevacuum port 44 and a vacuum is drawn on the primary port 46, the vacuumcan secure the container 38 to the vehicle 24. The primary port 46 caninclude a valve, such as a Schrader valve (not shown) that selectivelyfluidically isolates the primary port 46 from the vacuum port 44 suchthat once a vacuum is drawn on the container 38, the valve prevents thevacuum from releasing until the valve is subsequently actuated.

In some embodiments, an upper surface 48 of the upper portion 26 can beformed of an elastomeric or other similar material that encourages aneffective seal between the container 38 and the upper surface 48. Such avehicle which comprises a vacuum holder is described in a U.S. patentapplication filed on the same day as the present application, whichclaims the benefit of provisional U.S. Patent Application Ser. No.62/385,324, filed on Sep. 9, 2016.

It should be understood that although part of the vehicle 24 isdescribed herein as the upper portion 26, this portion of the vehicle(which comprises a retaining surface for the container), and need notalways be oriented upward. The retaining surface can be oriented in anysuitable direction, including downward (upside down) or sideways at anysuitable stage of the processes described herein. (Of course, acontainer with fluent material therein and its opening unsealed, willtypically not be conveyed in an upside down condition, but an emptycontainer or a closed container, or a closure for a container, could beconveyed upside down or sideways.)

In some embodiments, a vehicle 24 with a vacuum holder may furthercomprise a gauge or sensor that measures the strength of the vacuum, forexample in pressure units of psig or kPa, to ensure that the vacuum isof sufficient strength to secure the container. Target values may beplaced upon the vacuum strength so that a reading which is outside thosetarget values can be used to signal that the container 38 is notsufficiently secured to the vehicle 24. The vacuum holder may furthercomprise a communication means between the gauge or sensor thatcommunicates with the system so that any container that is notsufficiently secured to its vehicle may be identified remotely androuted to an inspection and/or rejection station or to a vacuum stationwhere the vacuum may be re-charged.

The containers can be any of a variety of configurations and can be usedacross a variety of industries to hold a variety of products. Forexample, any embodiment of containers, as described herein, may be usedacross the consumer products industry and the industrial productsindustry, wherein said containers contain a fluent product. Thecontainers may be filled in one or multiple filling operations tocontain, after partial or complete intended filling, a portion, ormultiple ingredients of, or all ingredients of, a finished product.

The containers can be formed of any of a variety of suitable materials,such as, for example, a polymeric composition. The polymeric compositioncan be formed (e.g., molded into various articles such as containers,formed into one or more pieces of film that are joined together to forma container, or otherwise formed) into containers.

In some cases (such as to form bottles), the composition may beextrusion blow molded or injection molded. Typically, high densitypolyethylene (HDPE) is extrusion blow molded and polyethyleneterephthalate (PET) is injection stretch blow molded. A completelyassembled container may comprise one or more elements which include, butare not limited to a container, a closure, a nozzle, a drain-backfeature, and/or a handle.

Examples of containers that are formed from one or more pieces of filmto form flexible containers, and methods of making the same, aredescribed in the following U.S. Patent Publications and applications: US2013/0292353; US 2013/0292415; US 2014/0033654; US 2015/0122840; US2015/0125099; US 2015/0121810; US 2016/0325518; US 2017/0001782; andU.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/466,901 (The Procter & GambleFlexible Inflatable Container patent publications).

The vehicles 24 can be configured to accommodate certain types ofarticles (such as containers). As such, different vehicle types can beprovided on the track 22 to allow for simultaneous routing of differenttypes of articles along the track 22. The vehicles 24 are also notlimited to conveying the articles set forth above. In some cases, thevehicles 24 can be used for other purposes which may include, but arenot limited to: delivering raw materials to a unit operation station;and delivering tools such as changeover tools and the like to variouslocations around the track system. For example, a vehicle may be used tocarry a tool that removes a roll of labels from a decoration unitoperation station prior to replacing the same.

Referring again to FIG. 1, the track 22 can be formed by a plurality ofstraight portions 50 a, a plurality of curved portions 50 b, and aplurality of transition portions 50 c. One of the straight portions 50 ais illustrated in FIG. 4 and is shown to include a pair of rails 52 athat are coupled with a base 54 a. The base 54 a can include a runningsurface 56 a and a plurality of conductive propulsion coils 58 adisposed beneath the running surface 56 a. The conductive propulsioncoils facilitate routing of the vehicles along the track 22 in adirection of travel. Each conductive propulsion coil defines a commonaxis and comprises a conductor having one or more turns that aredisposed about the common axis. The respective common axes of theplurality of conductive propulsion coils may be substantially parallelwith one another and substantially orthogonal to the desired directionof travel. The plurality of coils 58 a can be mounted on an underlyingsubstrate 60 a, which in some embodiments can be a printed circuit board(PCB). The plurality of coils 58 a can be electrically coupled with apower source (not shown) that can facilitate energization of the powercoils 58 a to propel the vehicles 24 along the track 22. The propulsioncoils 58 a may be disposed on at least one of the opposing sides of themagnet of a vehicle to facilitate propulsion of the vehicle along thetrack system. A control system 62 (FIG. 1) can control the energizationof the coils 58 a to control the propulsion of the vehicles 24 along thetrack 22. In one embodiment, each coil 58 a can be electrically coupledto a transistor (e.g., a MOSFET or IGBT) which is coupled with an outputof an “H-bridge”. The control system 62 can control the propulsion ofeach of the vehicles 24 along the track 22 through operation of theH-bridge which controls the amount and direction of current in each coil58 a. Hall effect sensors (not shown) can be distributed along the base54 a to facilitate detection of the magnetic field produced by thevehicles 24 on the track 22. The control system 62 can be in electricalcommunication with the Hall effect sensors to facilitate selectivecontrol of various propulsion characteristics of the vehicles 24 (e.g.,speed, direction, position).

Each rail 52 a can have an upper portion 64 a and a side portion 66 athat cooperate together to form an L-shape when viewed from the end.Each of the rails 52 a are coupled at the side portions 66 a to the base54 a with fasteners 68 a. When each vehicle 24 is provided on the track22, the upper portions 64 a of each of the rails 52 a can extend intothe space between the upper and lower portions 26, 28 of the vehicle 24such that the wear surface 34 of the upper portion 26 of the vehicle 24can ride on the upper portion 64 a of the rails 52 a. In alternativeembodiments, the wear surface can have wheels extending therefrom, andthe wheels can travel over the upper portion 64 a of the rails 52 a. Theside portions 66 a of each of the rails 52 a can extend along oppositesides of the lower portion 28 of the vehicle 24. During operation of thevehicles 24 along the track 22, the rails 52 a can facilitate guidanceof the vehicles 24 along the running surface 56 a while suspending thevehicle 24 above the running surface 56 a enough to allow the vehicles24 to be magnetically propelled along the track 22.

Referring now to FIG. 5, one of the curved portions 50 b is illustrated,which is similar to, or the same as in many respects as the straightportion 50 a illustrated in FIG. 4. For example, the curved portion 50 bcan include a pair of rails 52 b that are coupled with a base 54 b. Thebase 54 b can include a running surface 56 b and a plurality of coils(not shown) that are disposed beneath the running surface 56 b. However,the curved portion 50 b can be angled by about 90 degrees to facilitateturning of the vehicles 24 along the track 22.

Referring now to FIG. 6, one of the transition portions 50 c isillustrated, which is similar to, or the same as in many respects as thestraight portion 50 a illustrated in FIG. 4. For example, the transitionportion 50 c can include a plurality of rails 52 c that are coupled witha base 54 c. The base 54 c can include a running surface 56 c and aplurality of coils (not shown) that are disposed beneath the runningsurface 56 c. However, the transition portion 50 c can have a straightportion 70 c and an angled portion 72 c that facilitate routing of thevehicles 24 in different directions. In one embodiment, the transitionportion 50 c can include a flipper member 74 that is pivotable between aretracted position (shown in FIG. 6) and an extended position (notshown). When the flipper member 74 is in the retracted position, apassing vehicle 24 will travel along the straight portion 70 c of thetransition portion 50 c. When the flipper member 74 is in the extendedposition, a passing vehicle 24 will be routed from the straight portion70 c to the angled portion 72 c. The control system 62 can be inelectrical communication with the flipper member 74 to facilitateselective control of the routing of passing vehicles 24 to either thestraight portion 70 c or the angled portion 72 c. It is to beappreciated that any of a variety of suitable alternative ingressswitches and/or egress switches can be employed to facilitate selectiverouting of a vehicle between the straight portion 70 c and the angledportion 72 c. Some examples of these alternative arrangements aredescribed in U.S. Pat. No. 9,032,880 and U.S. Pat. Pub. No.2007/0044676.

Referring again to FIG. 1, the track 22 can include a primary transportportion 76 and at least one (alternatively, a plurality of) secondarytransport portions 78 that are provided around, and extend from, theprimary transport portion 76. The primary transport portion 76 candefine a primary path P1 for the vehicles 24. Each of the secondarytransport portions 78 can define a secondary path P2 for the vehicles 24that intersects the primary path P1 at an ingress location 80 and anegress location 82. The vehicles 24 can enter and exit each of thesecondary transport portions 78 at the associated ingress and egresslocations 80, 82, respectively. The vehicles 24 may, and will often,depart from the primary transport portion 76 to another portion of thetrack, which may be evidenced by a change in the direction of curvatureof the track (e.g., secondary transport portions 78) to have anoperation performed on an article on the vehicle. The operations can,and will often, be performed in a sequence (or in a non-sequentialmanner) relative to other articles that is different from the typicalsequence in conventional manufacturing processes in which there is astep-by-step series of operations performed on a succession of articles.The track system 20 is, thus, distinguishable from a typical conveyorsystem in which the articles being manufactured travel along a singleconveyor and have steps in the manufacture performed successively fromthe upstream end of the conveyor to the downstream end.

The vehicles 24 can travel clockwise or counter-clockwise around theprimary transport portion 76 and the secondary transport portion(s) 78.In some embodiments, it is possible for some of the vehicles 24 totravel clockwise, and some of the vehicles to simultaneously travelcounter-clockwise for a portion of their routes or vice versa, but caremust be taken so travel in opposing directions does not result in acollision between the vehicles. In some embodiments, it is also possiblefor vehicles to travel in opposite directions (or reversibly) on thesame section of track, but care must again be taken so travel inopposing directions does not result in a collision between the vehicles.

Depending on the desired throughput of the track system, it may bedesirable to incorporate additional primary transport loops to increasethe overall throughput of the system. For example, as shown in FIG. 1F,in some embodiments, it is possible to incorporate an additional primarytransport loop “ring” 76A within another primary transport loop 76.

As shown in FIG. 1G, it may be desirable to link the multiple tracksections to each other and/or to the various unit operations via one ormore overpasses and/or underpasses. The overpasses and underpasses allowportions of the track to cross each other without requiring a connectiveintersection therebetween. Although FIG. 1G shows an overpass 81 beingused to provide a path from one primary transport loop 76A that crossesover another primary transport loop 76, such overpasses and underpassescan be used to cross between any two portions of a track includingprimary transport loops 76 and secondary transport portions.

In other embodiments such as shown in FIG. 1H, there can be additionalprimary transport loops 76A vertically arranged over another primarytransport loop 76. The primary transport loops 76 and 76A may have acommon footprint, though the various primary transport loops havevarying vertical elevations. In other cases, the primary transport loops76 and 76A need not have a common footprint. FIG. 1H shows an example ofportions of a track that are vertically arranged with respect to eachother which are connected by an inclined on ramp or off ramp. It is alsopossible for secondary transport portions 78 to be similarly verticallyarranged with respect to each other; or, with respect to primarytransport loops 76. Any of these sections of track can similarly beconnected by on ramps and/or off ramps.

As shown in FIG. 1I, the system may also include an elevator for movingvehicles with or without articles there substantially vertically fromone portion of track to an upper or lower portion of track.

Additionally, the track can be formed by a plurality of inclined ordeclined portions. In addition, inclined or declined track portions maybe combined with inverted track portions so that two separate vehiclesmay approach one another from above and/or below, allowing the articlescarried thereon to approach one another and/or be connected. Such aconfiguration may be advantageous, for example as shown in FIG. 1J, whenapplying a closure 42 to a container 38 where, the container may besecured to a vehicle 24 in its upright configuration and the closure 42may be secured to a vehicle 24A in an inverted configuration, and adecline in the track portion 76A carrying the vehicle 24A transportingthe closure 42 may be made to approach and contact the container 38,thereby sealing the container.

In still other embodiments, the track can be formed by one or moreinverted portions such as a cork-screw or loop-the-loop portion thatresults in inverting the vehicles and their associated articles. Thiscan be done for mixing fluent compositions, or any other suitablepurpose.

As shown in FIG. 1, each of the secondary transport portions 78 can haveone or more unit operation stations disposed therealong. These unitoperation station(s) can be any of the types of unit operation stationsdescribed in the above definition of “unit operation stations” (and thedefinitions of “transformation” and “inspection” included therein).There can be any suitable number of unit operation stations. Generally,there will be two or more unit operation stations (e.g., 2, 3, 4, 5, . .. up to 100, or more). The unit operation stations may be in anysuitable arrangement along the secondary transport portions 78. The unitoperation stations can be arranged with a single unit operation stationalong one or more of the secondary transport portions, or a group ofunit operation stations along one or more of the secondary transportportions.

Unit operation stations can include, but are not limited to: loadingarticles onto vehicles; unloading articles or products from vehicles;filling (such as filling a container with one or more fluent products);capping; uncapping; inspecting; decorating; mixing; assembling (such asassembling components of an article); forming all or a portion of acontainer (e.g., forming a flexible container from film); bringingtogether components of a container; and/or components of a containerclosure; maintenance (that is, performing maintenance on vehicles, orother components of the system); shrink wrapping; weighing; and vacuumapplication or discharge. If desired, the function of any two or moreunit operations can be combined at a single unit operation station(e.g., filling and capping). The unit operation stations can optionallyfurther comprise one or more additional mechanisms (including, but notlimited to sensors) that perform one or more additional operations thatare suitable or necessary for carrying out the desired process. Inaddition, it may be desired to exclude one or more of the foregoingtypes of unit operations and/or mechanisms. Operations at a given unitoperation station may be carried out automatically by any suitable typeof mechanism. Alternatively, any operation at a given unit operationstation can be carried out manually. Any of these unit operationstations may be described as a unit operation station preceded by theparticular operation performed (e.g., loading unit operation station).

As noted above, there can be a vacuum application station (or simply“vacuum station”) for drawing a vacuum to hold an article to a vacuumholder (such as a vacuum holder vehicle). There can also be a vacuumrecharge station for drawing additional vacuum, if needed to account forany reduction in vacuum holding the article over time. In addition,there can be a vacuum discharge station for releasing the vacuum that isholding an article to a vehicle so that the article can be removed fromthe vehicle. Such a vacuum discharge station can be a separate station,or it can be a part of another station including, but not limited to avacuum station.

FIG. 1 shows one non-limiting embodiment of an arrangement of unitoperation stations on the secondary transport portions 78. In theembodiment shown in FIG. 1, each of the secondary transport portions 78comprises one of a plurality of (container) loading stations 84, aplurality of combined filling/capping stations 86, a plurality ofdecorating stations 88, or a plurality of unloading stations 90 (e.g.,collectively “the unit operation stations”). In this embodiment, each ofthe unit operation stations 84, 86, 88, 90 located at a particularsecondary transport portion 78 can be disposed along different unittransport segments 91 that are arranged in parallel. The vehicles 24 canbe selectively routed among the secondary transport portions 78 tofacilitate bottling of fluent material within a plurality of thecontainers 38 (and in other embodiments, to carry out the manufacture ofassembly of assembled products).

When a vehicle 24 is empty (i.e., devoid of a container 38), the vehicle24 can first be routed to one of the loading stations 84 where an emptycontainer 38 is loaded onto the vehicle 24. The vehicle 24 can thenroute the empty container 38 to one of the filling/capping stations 86where it is filled with fluent material and sealed with one of theclosures 40. The vehicle 24 can then route the container 38 to one ofthe decoration stations 88 to have a decoration applied thereto, and canthen route the container 38 to one of the unloading stations 90 wherethe filled container 38 can be removed from the vehicle 24 for loadinginto packaging.

It is to be appreciated that there can be significantly more vehicles 24on the track 22 than are illustrated in FIG. 1. There can also besignificantly more vehicles 24 than unit operation stations 84, 86, 88,90. Each of the vehicles 24 may be independently routable along thetrack 22 to facilitate simultaneous delivery of at least some of thecontainers 38 to different ones of the unit operation stations 84, 86,88, 90. The unit transport segments 91 in the embodiment shown in FIG. 1can have the appearance of rungs on a ladder. The unit transportsegments 91 can have a length that is sufficient to simultaneouslyaccommodate a plurality of vehicles 24. The different unit transportsegments 91 can have the same lengths, or alternatively, differentlengths. As such, multiple vehicles 24 can be queued on the unittransport segments 91 awaiting delivery to the associated unit operationstation 84, 86, 88, 90. Of course, vehicles can also wait on the siderails of the ladder-like structures, but in some cases, this may lead tovehicles blocking other vehicles from reaching downstream unit transportsegments 91.

When the vehicles 24 are not stationed at one of the unit operationstations 84, 86, 88, 90, at least one (or more, e.g., 2, 3, 4, 5, . . .up to 100, or more) of the vehicles 24 can continuously circulate aroundthe primary transport portion 76, thus bypassing the secondary transportportions 78 while waiting to be diverted thereto. The primary path P1can be in the form of a closed loop to facilitate the circulation of thevehicles 24. The primary path P1 may also be described as circuital orcontinuous. The primary path P1 can be of any suitable configuration.Suitable configurations for the primary path P1 include, but are notlimited to: circular paths, elliptical paths, or paths that comprisesboth linear portions and curvilinear portions. Non-limiting examples ofthe latter types of paths include: race track configured paths,generally rectangular paths with rounded corners (as shown in FIG. 1),and other closed loop paths. The primary path P1, of course, is notclosed to vehicles entering or leaving the primary path, since it doeshave ingress and egress portions for container-loaded vehicles to bediverted therefrom onto the secondary paths P2.

In some cases, as shown in FIG. 1A, the primary path P1 may furthercomprise one or more sub-loops 77 that are disposed inside of the mainclosed loop of the primary transport portion 76, and form a path betweenportions of the main closed loop. The sub-loop 77 may form a pathbetween opposing portions of the main closed loop 76. However, sub-loops77 may alternatively form a path between non-opposing portions of themain closed loop 76. There are, of course, ingress and egress portionsto the sub-loop(s). The sub-loops 77 provide a path for at least some ofthe container-loaded vehicles to recirculate without travelingcompletely around the closed loop of the primary path P1.

There can be any suitable number of secondary paths P2 (e.g., 1, 2, 3,4, 5, . . . up to 100, or more). In some cases, a single secondary pathhaving a ladder configuration (described below), with two rungs may besufficient. Generally, there will be two or more secondary paths (in thecase of fluent products, for example, at least one for filling and onefor unloading). When there is more than one secondary path P2, these canbe referred to as first, second, third, etc. secondary paths. Similarly,the ingress locations for the secondary paths may be referred to as afirst ingress and egress location for the first secondary path; a secondingress and egress location for the second secondary path, etc. Althoughas shown in FIG. 1, the different secondary paths 78 all have a singletype of unit operation station disposed therealong, this is not arequirement. In other embodiments, the types of unit operation stationsdisposed along one or more different secondary paths 78 may differ. Inaddition, in some cases a single type of unit operation station can bedisposed along more than one secondary path.

The secondary paths P2 can be of any suitable configuration. Thesecondary paths P2 may be of the same configurations as each other, orof different configurations. If there are more than two secondary pathsP2, two of the secondary paths may have the same configuration, and atleast one secondary path may have a different configuration. Suitableconfigurations for the secondary path P2 include, but are not limitedto: linear paths, curvilinear paths, or in a path that comprises bothlinear portions and curvilinear portions.

There are virtually an unlimited number of possible secondary transportportion (and secondary path) configurations. FIGS. 1A to 1D show severalof these. An example of a linear path is one such as secondary transportportion 78A shown in FIG. 1B in which the secondary path P2 forms alinear segment that is joined to the primary path P1 at a combinedingress/egress location. The vehicle loaded with an article (such as acontainer) can depart from the primary path P1 to enter such a secondarypath P2, and then can re-trace its movement along the linear secondarypath P2 to re-enter the primary path P1. Non-limiting examples ofsecondary paths that comprises both linear portions and curvilinearportions include the generally rectangular paths with rounded corners(as shown in FIG. 1). Such secondary paths may appear to have a ladderconfiguration in plan view. There can be any suitable number of rungs onthe ladders (e.g., 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or more). The secondary path ingressand egress locations 80 and 82 may be spaced apart as shown in FIG. 1,or in other cases the same (not spaced apart on the primary path) asshown on secondary transport portion 78E in FIG. 1C.

The secondary paths P2 may be in any suitable location relative to theprimary path P1. One or more secondary paths P2 may extend outwardoutside of the closed loop of the primary path P1 as shown in FIG. 1. Inother cases, as in the case of secondary transport portion 78F shown inFIG. 1C, one or more secondary paths P2 may be located inside of theclosed loop of the primary path P1. In other cases, as in the case ofsecondary transport portions 78G and 78H shown in FIG. 1C, one or moreportions of a secondary path, such as 78H, may extend outside of asecondary transport portion (and if desired, form a ladder off of anyside or portion of the same). Further, although in the embodiment shownin FIG. 1, in which the primary path P1 is a generally rectangular pathhaving four sides with rounded corners, and there is one branch ofsecondary paths P2 on each of the sides of the primary path P1, in othercases, there may be a different arrangement. For example, as shown inFIG. 1A, there can be more than one secondary path P2 extending from oneor more of the sides of the primary path P1. In some cases, there may beone or more sides of the primary path P1 with no secondary paths P2extending therefrom.

FIG. 1A shows that a secondary path 78 (on the upper right portion ofFIG. 1A) can optionally be provided with a return loop 79. Thissecondary path 78 is shown in the form of a ladder with an upper rungand a lower rung. In this case, the upper rung may be a conventionalrung in which vehicles can travel in the same direction (clockwise forexample) as the travel of vehicles on the primary path 76. Another rung,such as the lower rung, can provide a return loop 79 in which vehiclescan travel back to the ingress leg of the ladder in the direction of thearrow. This allows vehicles to be sent through more than one unitoperation station on this particular secondary path if desired. Thisalso allows vehicles to be sent through one or more unit operationstations more than once on this particular secondary path if desired.

FIG. 1B shows several other secondary path configurations. Secondarypath 78B is an example of a secondary path which is similar in functionto secondary path 78A, but has a curvilinear configuration. Secondarypath 78C contains an additional leg which allows a vehicle to betransported to an egress point that is downstream of the ingress point.A vehicle on secondary path 78C will travel “head first” into the firstleg of the secondary path, and then will travel “tail first” when itreverses direction and travels along the second leg of this secondarypath. Secondary path 78D contains another additional (third) leg (beyondthat of secondary path 78C) which allows a vehicle to be reoriented andtravel head first again along this third leg as it proceeds back ontothe primary path 76.

FIG. 1D shows another secondary path configuration. As shown in FIG. 1D,it is possible for there to be multiple secondary paths that are nestedor cascaded in parallel or in series in any suitable manner.

In some additional embodiments, segments of track can be physicallyturned or moved to enable more complex or interconnected layouts. In onespecific embodiment, as shown in FIG. 1K, a corner segment (50 b) couldbe rotated to select between two different sections of the layout. Inanother embodiment, such as shown in FIG. 1L, a straight segment oftrack (50 a) can be rotated with a vehicle 24 aboard to reverse theorientation of the vehicle and contents, or to connect to anothersection of the layout (like a railroad roundhouse). In yet anotherembodiment as shown in FIG. 1I (in the dashed outer lines), a section oftrack 76 can be lifted or lowered with a vehicle 24 on board to move avehicle between sections of the layout that are stacked above or beloweach other. These optional embodiments allow for layouts that might bemore space efficient or simplify design of external systems such asutilities or material supply.

Circulating the vehicles 24 around the primary transport portion 76 canalleviate congestion on the track 22 which can enhance the throughput ofthe track system 20. For example, when a vehicle 24 is scheduled to berouted to the next unit operation station 84, 86, 88, 90 of its sequencein the course of producing a finished product, and that unit operationstation 84, 86, 88, 90 is occupied (i.e., due to other vehicles 24occupying the unit operation station 84, 86, 88, 90), the vehicle 24 cancirculate around the primary transport portion 76 (i.e., in a holdingpattern). Once the scheduled unit operation station 84, 86, 88, 90becomes ready to receive vehicles, the vehicle 24 can then be divertedto the appropriate transport segment 91 of the scheduled unit operationstation 84, 86, 88, 90.

It is possible that one or more types of unit operation stations couldbe located along the primary transport portion 76. However, to alleviatecongestion on the primary transport portion 76 and allow one or more ofthe vehicles 24 to continuously circulate along the primary path P1, theprimary transport portion 76 can be devoid of some or all unit operationstations (i.e., 84, 86, 88, 90), and the unit operation stations caninstead be located at the secondary transport portions 78, as describedabove. Alternatively, the primary transport portion 76 may only havefast cycle stations located along the same. The vehicles 24 aretherefore diverted off of the primary transport portion 76 to undergothe operations performed by the unit operation station 84, 86, 88, 90and thus do not interfere with the flow of traffic on the primarytransport portion 76. (Of course, in other embodiments, one or more unitoperation stations can be located along the primary transport portion76, and other unit operation stations may be located on the secondarytransport portions 78.)

Operating the track system 20 in this manner can allow for moreefficient production of products than conventional conveyor systems. Aswill be described in further detail below, the control system 62 cancoordinate operation of the track 22, routing of each of the vehicles24, as well as operation of each of the unit operation stations 84, 86,88, 90 to efficiently and effectively fulfill an order of finishedproducts. The control system is, thus, in communication with the track22, the vehicles 24, and the unit operation stations 84, 86, 88, 90. Thecoordination of the operation of these components can include, forexample, vehicle identification, vehicle scheduling, vehicle speed(which can be varied in any suitable manner including speeding up,slowing down, and stopping a vehicle), vehicle direction (includingchanging direction to a different path, and reversing direction),collision avoidance, route selection, outage reporting, and the like.

Each of the unit operation stations 84, 86, 88, and 90 in the embodimentshown in FIG. 1 will now be more fully described.

The container loading stations (or simply “loading stations”) 84 can beconfigured to facilitate loading of an empty container (e.g., 38) and/ora closure 42 therefor onto a vehicle 24 located at the container loadingstation 84. It is to be appreciated that the container loading station84 can comprise any of a variety of automated and/or manual arrangementsthat facilitate loading of a container and/or a closure 42 onto avehicle. Loading can be done manually, statically such as by a gravityfeed chute with optional gate, or with a mechanical motion device.Suitable mechanical motion devices include, but are not limited to:independently actuatable automatic arms, pneumatic arms, robots,transfer wheels, and other mechanical moving elements. In oneembodiment, the container loading stations 84 can each include a roboticarm (not shown) that retrieves the container 38 and/or a closure from astorage area and places the container 38 and/or a closure on the vehicle24. To facilitate grasping of the containers 38 and/or closures, eachrobotic arm can have a robotic mandible, a suction end, or any of avariety of suitable additional or alternative arrangements that enablegrasping of the containers 38 and/or closures. Once the container 38and/or a closure are in place on the vehicle 24, if the vacuum holdershown in FIG. 2 is used, a vacuum line (not shown) can be insertedeither manually or automatically in the primary port 46 (FIG. 2) to drawa vacuum on the vacuum port 44 thereby temporarily securing thecontainer 38 and/or a closure to the vehicle 24. The vacuum line canthen be removed from the primary port 46, thereby allowing theassociated valve (not shown) to close to maintain the vacuum on thecontainer 38 and/or a closure. A vacuum station such as that describedabove may also be remote from the loading and/or unloading station(s)for the purpose of re-charging the vacuum at other times.

A filling unit operation station 86A is used to dispense fluent materialinto at least some of the containers. A filling unit operation stationis not required to fill the containers to any particular level (such asto a “full” level). The filling unit operation station can dispense anysuitable fluent material into the container. In some cases, the fillingunit operation station can dispense a composition into the containerthat comprises all of the ingredients of the finished product.Alternatively, the filling unit operation station can dispense a basecomposition into the container, and the container can be sent to one ormore other filling unit operation stations to have other ingredients (orseveral other ingredients in the form of pre-mix additions) addedthereto in order to form a finished product. In other cases, theseparate ingredients and/or pre-mix additions can be initially added tothe container at a filling unit operation station, and then theremainder of the ingredients or base composition may be subsequentlyadded at other filling unit operation stations. Thus, some filling unitoperation stations may only dispense portions of the finished productcomposition. Such portions include, but are not limited to: water,silicone (such as for use as a conditioning agent, or the like), dyes,perfumes, perfume microcapsules, enzymes, flavors, bleach, anti-foamagents, surfactants, structurants, stabilizers such as solvents,anti-microbials, aesthetic enhancers such as opacifiers, mica and thelike, etc. If the ingredients are separately added, they can be added inany suitable order, and mixed together at any suitable unit operationstation.

In addition, although some filling unit operation stations may only beconfigured to dispense one type of fluent material, the filling unitoperation stations are not limited to dispensing only one type of fluentmaterial (e.g., one color of dye, etc.). In some cases, one or more ofthe filling unit operation stations can be configured to dispensedifferent ingredients (such as through a different fluent materialsupply and nozzle). For example, the same filling unit operation stationcould dispense a green finished composition, a blue finishedcomposition, and a red finished composition; or, it could dispense agreen dye, a blue dye, and a red dye. In such cases, at least twodifferent types of containers (e.g., a first, a second, a third, etc.container) may receive one or more (or all) of the ingredients for theirfinished compositions from the same fluent material dispensing unitoperation station, or from the same type of fluent material dispensingunit operation station.

A filling unit operation station may, therefore, comprise a plurality ofindependently controllable nozzles for dispensing fluent material intothe containers. Such independently controllable nozzles may take anumber of different forms. In some cases, a single nozzle can be used todispense more than one different fluent material. In other cases,filling unit operation station may comprise a bank of nozzles whichcomprises a plurality of nozzles, each of which may be configured todispense the same or different fluent materials. In still other cases,one or more nozzles can be movable upward and downward to accommodatecontainers of different heights.

Mixing unit operation stations can comprise any suitable type of mixingdevice.

Suitable types of mixing devices include, but are not limited to: mixershaving a static geometry such as static mixers, orifice mixers, orificeand plate mixers, turbulent or laminar mixing in pipe, injection/jetmixing in pipe, liquid whistle cavitation, dynamic mixers such asmills/agitators, in-bottle mixing devices and in-nozzle mixing devices,and other in situ mixing devices. The mixing unit operation station canbe located adjacent to the track, and the product to be mixed can bemixed while the container is on (a vehicle on) the track. In otherembodiments, the mixing station may be configured so that the containercan be removed from the (vehicle and the) track; mixed at a locationthat is displaced from the track; and, then returned to the track (e.g.,vehicle).

Suitable types of in situ mixing methods are described in PCT PatentApplication Serial No. CN2017/087537 (P&G Case AA 1227). This patentapplication describes methods for in situ mixing of two or moredifferent liquid compositions by employing a dynamic flow profilecharacterized by a ramping-up section and/or a ramping-down section. Inthis in situ liquid mixing method, i.e., two or more liquid rawmaterials are mixed directly inside a container (e.g., a bottle, a pouchor the like) that is designated for housing a finished liquid consumerproduct during shipping and commercialization of such product, or evenduring usage after such product has been sold. This mixing methodemploys a dynamic filling profile for filling the container, which canhelp to reduce splashing, rebounding, and associated negative effects(such as aeration) inside the container caused by high-speed filling,and/or to improve thoroughness of the mixing and to ensure that thefinished liquid consumer product so formed has satisfactory homogeneityand stability. More importantly, with the splashing and rebounding undercontrol, it is possible to push the filling speed even higher, therebysignificantly reducing the filling time and improving the systemthroughput. In one aspect, the method of filling a container with liquidcompositions includes the steps of: (A) providing a container that hasan opening, wherein the total volume of the container ranges from about100 ml to about 10 liters; (B) providing a first liquid feed compositionand a second liquid feed composition that is different from the firstliquid feed composition; (C) partially filling the container with thefirst liquid feed composition to from about 0.01% to about 50% of thetotal volume of the container; and (D) subsequently, filling theremaining volume of the container, or a portion thereof, with the secondliquid feed composition, while the second liquid feed composition isfilled through the top opening into the container by one or more liquidnozzles, while such one or more liquid nozzles are arranged to generateone or more liquid flows characterized by a dynamic flow profile, whichincludes an increasing flow rate at the beginning of step (D) and/or adecreasing flow rate at the end of step (D) in combination with a peakflow rate during the middle of step (D).

Other suitable types of methods for in situ mixing of two or moredifferent liquid compositions in a container are described in PCT PatentApplication Serial No. CN2017/087538 (P&G Case AA 1228). This patentapplication describes a method of employing one or more liquid influxesthat are offset by 1-50° from a longitudinal axis of the container. Inthis in situ liquid mixing method, two or more liquid raw materials aremixed directly inside a container (e.g., a bottle, a pouch or the like)that is designated for housing a finished liquid consumer product duringshipping and commercialization of such product, or even during usageafter such product has been sold. This method employs one or more liquidinfluxes for filling the container that are not aligned with thelongitudinal axis of the container, but are offset from suchlongitudinal axis by a sufficiently large offset angle (a), e.g., fromabout 1° to about 50°. Such offset or angled liquid influxes function toincrease the impact of available kinetic energy on the mixing result andin turn improve homogeneity and stability of the finished liquidconsumer product so formed. In one aspect, this method of filling acontainer with liquid compositions, comprises the steps of: providing acontainer that has an opening with a centroid, a supporting plane, and alongitudinal axis that extends through the centroid of the opening andis perpendicular to such supporting plane, while the total volume of thecontainer ranges from 10 ml to 10 liters; (B) providing a first liquidfeed composition and a second liquid feed composition that is differentfrom the first liquid feed composition; (C) partially filling thecontainer with the first liquid feed composition to from about 0.01% toabout 50% of the total volume of such container; and (D) subsequently,filling the remaining volume of the container, or a portion thereof,with the second liquid feed composition, while during step (D), thesecond liquid feed composition is filled through the opening into thecontainer by one or more liquid nozzles that are positioned immediatelyabove the opening or inserted into the opening, and while such one ormore liquid nozzles are arranged to generate one or more liquid influxesthat are offset from the longitudinal axis of the container by an offsetangle (a) ranging from about 1° to about 50°.

The combined filling/capping stations 86 can be configured to dispensefluent material into containers 38 and to apply a closure to thecontainers 38 once they are filled. One example combined filling/cappingstation 86 is illustrated in FIG. 7 and is shown to include a fillingportion 92 and a capping portion 94. The filling portion 92 can includea filler arm 96 which can move vertically between a retracted position(FIG. 7) and an extended position (not shown). The capping portion 94can include a capping arm 98 that can move vertically between aretracted position (not shown) and a capping position (FIG. 7). To beginfilling the container 38, the vehicle 24 can be routed to the fillingportion 92 with the empty container 38 located beneath the filler arm96. The filler arm 96 can then be moved from the retracted position tothe extended position and into engagement with the opening 40 of thecontainer 38. The filler arm 96 can then dispense fluent material intothe container 38. Once the fluent material has been dispensed, thefiller arm 96 can stop dispensing fluid and can move back to theretracted position. The vehicle 24 can then be routed to the cappingportion 94 with the closure 42 positioned beneath the capping arm 98.The capping arm 98 can then extend to the closure 42, grasp the closure42, and then return to the retracted position. The vehicle 24 can thenmove the opening 40 of the container 38 beneath the capping arm 98. Thecapping arm 98 can move to the capping position and can screw, orotherwise attach, the closure 42 to the container 38. The closure 42 maybe removable or openable by a consumer to access the contents.

In some embodiments, the closure 42 may be transported on the container40. In such embodiments, when the vehicle 24 arrives at thefilling/capping station 86, the vehicle 24 can first be routed to thecapping portion 94. The capping arm 98 can remove the closure 42 fromthe container 38 and can move to the retracted position while holdingthe closure 42. The vehicle 24 can then be routed to the filling portion92 for filling of the container 38 with fluid. Once the container isfilled, the vehicle 24 can return to the capping station 94 where thecapping arm 98 secures to the closure 42 to the container 38. In otherembodiments, the closure 42 can be transported to the filling/cappingstation 86 on the same vehicle as the container 38, but not on thecontainer (for example, on the same vehicle but adjacent to thecontainer). In other embodiments, the closure 42 can be transported tothe filling/capping station 86 on a different vehicle (e.g., a separatevehicle) from the vehicle transporting the container 38. When theclosure is transported on a vehicle, it can be held by vacuum (or insome other suitable manner) and sent to any of the finished product unitoperation stations, if desired. For example, it may be desirable to sendthe closure 42 to a decoration station for decorating the closure. Inyet other embodiments, the closure 42 might not be transported with theempty container 38, but instead can be provided to the container 38 uponits arrival at the capping portion 94 (i.e., after the container 38 isfilled with fluent material). It is to be appreciated that thefilling/capping stations 86 can include any of a variety of additionalor alternative automated and/or manual arrangements that facilitatefilling and capping of a container.

An alternative embodiment of a secondary transport portion 1078 isillustrated in FIG. 8 and is shown to include a plurality offilling/capping stations 1086 that are similar to or the same as in manyrespects as the filling/capping stations 86 shown in FIGS. 1 and 7 anddescribed above. However, the filling/capping stations 1086 can bedisposed along different unit transport segments 1091 that are arrangedin series along a primary transport portion 1076 of a track (e.g., 22).It is to be appreciated that the other unit operation stations canadditionally or alternatively be disposed along different unit transportsegments 1091 that are arranged in series.

The decoration stations 88 can be configured to facilitate labelling,printing, spray-coating (i.e., spray-painting), or otherwise decoratingthe containers 38 (and optionally also doing the same to theirclosures). In one embodiment, at least one of the decoration stations 88can include a printer (not shown) that prints labels for application tothe containers 38. In such an embodiment, the printer can print thelabel on a sticker that is on a backing substrate. A spooling assembly(not shown) can receive the sticker and the backing substrate. When thevehicle 24 carrying the container 38 passes the spooling assembly, themovement of the container 38 past the spooling assembly can facilitateapplication of the sticker to the container 38.

In other embodiments, the printer can print ink onto a transfercomponent, and an adhesive can be applied onto the ink to form acomposite structure. The ink and adhesive composite structure can thenbe transferred from the transfer component onto an article (such as aproduct, or portion thereof, or a container) to form a label ordecoration (without using a separate sticker). The transfer componentmay be flexible and may comprise a flexible sheet material capable ofconforming to the article over a variety of concave and convex surfacefeatures. In some cases, the adhesive may be separate from the ink andintermediate the ink and the article. In other cases, the adhesive maybe integral with the ink. Additionally, the transfer component may betreated with a release coating that may be intermediate the transfercomponent and the ink and adhesive composite. Suitable transferprocesses are described in the following patent applications belongingto The Procter & Gamble Company: US 2017/0182756 A1; US 2017/0182704 A1;US 2017/0182513 A1; US 2017/0182705 A1; and, US 2017/0183124 A1.

In other embodiments the printer can print ink onto a sleeve or wrapsuch as a shrink-sleeve that encompasses the perimeter of the containeror article. The sleeve may be then made to conform at least in part tothe container or article, such as by heating the shrink-sleeve.

Such arrangements can facilitate “on-demand” decorating wherebydifferent decorations (such as labels) can be printed for the differenttypes of articles and/or containers 38 (and/or fluids in suchcontainers) that are being carried by the vehicles 24. These labels caninclude various types of decorations and product information such as,for example, characters, graphics, branding, ingredients, SKU (stockkeeping unit) information, or other visual elements for when the article(e.g., a container 38) is displayed for sale. If desired, the article(e.g., containers 38) can be customized, or even be personalized forand/or in response to orders from retailers or from individualconsumers.

The unloading stations 90 can be configured to facilitate removal of thearticles (such as filled containers 38) from the vehicles 24. In oneembodiment, each of the unloading stations 90 can include a robotic arm(not shown) that retrieves the article (e.g., container 38) from eachvehicle 24 for loading into packaging (e.g., a store display or ashipping container). To facilitate grasping of the articles (such asfilled containers 38), the robotic arm can have a robotic mandible, asuction end, or any of a variety of suitable additional or alternativearrangements that enable grasping of the container 38. In certain cases,at least a portion or component of the vehicle may be unloadedconcurrent with the article/container. For instance, a portion of thevehicle 24 can be configured to facilitate grasping an article. Forexample, the vehicle may comprise a puck to secure the article/containerto the vehicle 24, which puck is removable and replaceable.

Once the article (e.g., container 38) is removed from the vehicle 24,the vehicle 24 can be routed to the loading station 84 to receiveanother article (such as an empty container 38) for filling (orcomponent of an article for making an assembled product). It is to beappreciated that the unloading station 90 can include any of a varietyof additional or alternative automated and/or manual arrangements thatfacilitate unloading of a container finished product into packaging.

In some embodiments, the finished products (e.g., filled containers 38)can be placed into packaging that is designed to present the finishedproducts for sale at a merchant. In such packaging, the finishedproducts (e.g., finished fluent products) can be offered for saleindividually or packaged with one or more other products, which togetherform an article of commerce. The finished products can be offered forsale as a primary package with or without a secondary package. Thefinished products can be configured to be displayed for sale while lyingdown or standing up on a store shelf, while presented in a merchandisingdisplay, while hanging on a display hanger, or while loaded into adisplay rack or a vending machine. When the finished products comprisecontainers 38 containing fluent product(s), they can be configured witha structure that allows them to be displayed in any of these ways, or inany other way known in the art, as intended, without failure. In someembodiments, the unloading stations 90 can facilitate packaging(“bundling”) of different types of products within the same packagingwithout requiring manual handling of the articles as is oftentimesrequired in conventional operations.

The track system 20 can comprise any suitable number and/or type ofinspection station(s). For example, in FIG. 1, the track system 20 caninclude a first scanner 100 and a second scanner 102 that are eachconfigured to scan passing articles (e.g., containers 38). The scannerscan be in any suitable location around the track system 20. For example,the first scanner 100 can be located between one of the ingresslocations 80 and the filling/capping station 86 and can scan eachpassing vehicle 24 to determine if the container 38 is present. Thesecond scanner 102 can be located between the decoration stations 88 andthe unloading stations 90 and can scan each passing vehicle 24 todetermine whether the article (e.g., container 38) disposed thereon isready for packaging by the unloading stations 90.

If the article (e.g., container 38) is not ready for packaging by one ofthe unloading stations (such as due to a defect in the contents and/orthe container), the article can be unloaded at the unloading station ofits destination. In other cases, the vehicle with the article thereoncan be sent to an alternative unloading station. At the destination oralternative unloading station, one or more of the following actions cantake place: the defect in the article (such as in the container and/orits contents) can be remedied; the container can be emptied andrecycled; and/or the article (e.g., container and/or its contents) canbe disposed of. The article is unloaded from the unloading station, andthe vehicle becomes ready for a new route assignment.

The first and second scanners 100, 102 can be any of a variety ofscanners for obtaining information from the vehicles 24 and/or thearticles (e.g., containers 38) such as, for example, an infraredscanner. The first and second scanners 100, 102 can also be configuredto facilitate reading of a variety of data from the container 38 such asQR codes, UPC barcodes, or RFID tags, for example.

It is to be appreciated that the track system 20 can facilitatedispensing different types of fluent materials into various types ofdifferent containers at the same time. (Of course, the start time andfinish time of dispensing into the different containers may, but neednot, coincide exactly. The dispensing into the different containers mayonly at least partially overlap in time.) If the track system 20 isbeing used to make products other than fluent products, the track system20 can be used to make customized products intermixed with mass producedproducts at the same time. Similarly to fluent products, the start andfinish time of producing and/or assembling such products may, but neednot, coincide exactly. The start and finish time may only at leastpartially overlap in time.

In addition, in the case of fluent products, one or more containers maynot be filled with fluent material that is used to make a finishedproduct. For example, one or more containers may be used to receivefluent material that is cleaned or flushed from one or more nozzles at afilling unit operation station, and this fluent material can thereafterbe disposed of or recycled.

As will be described in more detail below, the particular type ofarticle (e.g., container types and fluent materials) provided for eachvehicle 24 can be selected by the control system 62 to fulfill aparticular production schedule, and each vehicle 24 can be independentlyand simultaneously routed along a unique route among the unit operationstations (such as 84, 86, 88, 90) to facilitate making a particularproduct (e.g., loading and filling of the containers 38). The uniqueroute for each vehicle 24 can be selected by the control system 62based, at least in part, upon the vehicle type (i.e., the type ofcontainer or containers the vehicle 24 is configured to accommodate),the unique routes selected for the other vehicles 24, and/or the type offinished product(s) needed by the unloading station 90 for packaging,for example. It is to be appreciated that the track system 20 canfacilitate filling of different types of containers with different typesof fluid more efficiently and effectively than conventionalarrangements. For example, conventional arrangements, such as linearconveyor or rotary filling lines, typically only allow for filling ofone type of container with one type of fluid at a time. As such,individual systems are oftentimes required for each container and fluidbeing manufactured which can be expensive and time consuming. Inaddition, converting these systems to use a different container and/orfluid can also be expensive and time consuming. The track system 20 cantherefore be a solution that allows for manufacture of different typesof filled containers less expensively and in a less time consumingmanner than these conventional arrangements.

It should be understood that the operations that take place at thedifferent unit operation stations may take the same amount of time, butoften do not. These time periods may be referred to as a first duration,a second duration, a third duration, etc. The first, second, third, etc.durations can be the same, or one can be greater than the other(s). Forinstance, some unit operation stations perform operations that arerelatively fast compared to other unit operation stations; some unitoperation stations may be relatively slow; and, some unit operationstations may carry out some operations that are relatively fast and somethat are slower (e.g., a filling station that can dispense oneingredient and that can also dispense a larger quantity comprising acomplete composition). Therefore, although FIG. 1 shows an equal numberof filling/capping unit operation stations and decoration stations, thisis not required. Thus, the system may, for example, have fewer of therelatively fast unit operation stations than the slower unit operationstations.

It should also be understood that the time it takes to create differenttypes of finished products from start to finish (throughput time) may bethe same, or different for the different types of finished products. Thetime it takes to create finished products may also be the same, ordifferent for the same types of finished products. The time it takes tocreate finished products can be measured beginning at a starting pointthat occurs when an empty vehicle arrives at a loading station and endsat a destination point when the finished product is unloaded at anunloading station.

FIGS. 14-15 show one non-limiting example of a system and method forproducing assembled products. FIG. 14 shows a system for makingassembled products which comprises a holder 1410 on which a product 1400will be assembled, a track system 1420 comprising a track 1422, aplurality of unit operation stations 1484, 1486, and 1488 disposed alongthe track system configured to assemble components A, B, and C to createa finished product, and a plurality of vehicles 24 propellable along thetrack system. Each holder 1410 is disposed on one of the vehicles 24(only one vehicle is shown), and each vehicle 24 is independentlyroutable along the track system to deliver the holders 1410 to at leastone unit operation station where an assembly operation is performed.Components (e.g., A, B, and C) for assembly can be supplied to the unitoperation stations 1484, 1486, and 1488 by an external supply system asshown in FIG. 14, or delivered by one of the plurality of vehicles 24.The finished product is shown in FIG. 15. It should be understood that,although a greatly simplified version of a track system is shown in FIG.14, systems and methods for producing assembled products can utilize anyof the track configurations and features for such systems contained inthis description.

Numerous alternative embodiments and features of the systems and methodsdescribed herein are possible.

In some embodiments, as shown in FIG. 1A, one or more of the unitoperation stations 87 may be disconnected/unconnected from the track. Insuch an embodiment, the entire vehicle 24 (including the article and themagnet) may be removed from the track such that the magnet is no longerin electromagnetic communication with the track. Once the vehicle isoutside of electromagnetic communication with the track, any kind ofunit operation can be performed. This can include, but is not limitedto: external mixing, such as tumbling, filling, and/or labeling anddecoration. Upon the completion of this unit operation, the entirevehicle 24 and magnet can be brought back into electromagneticcommunication with the track and conveying of the vehicle via the magnetcan resume.

The unit operation stations may be located in the same contiguous openspace, or as shown in the case of unit operation 89 in FIG. 1D, they maybe separated by walls 75 so as to be located in separate rooms,connected only by means of an opening or pass-through including aconnecting portion of track. The pass-through would be large enough toallow passage of the vehicles and containers/articles. The pass-throughmay be open or may include a gate or door. The pass through may be fullyclosed at times when a vehicle is not passing through it. The differentrooms may be maintained under different conditions. For example, theaddition of a composition comprising a light-sensitive ingredient may bereserved for a darkroom or a temperature/humidity sensitive ingredientreserved for a controlled temperature-room and/or controlled-humidityroom. Likewise, addition of compositions that may constitute ahuman-safety risk such as acids, bases, enzymes and the like may bereserved for a room with additional controls such as personal protectivemeasures. Likewise, packing a shipping of the containers once they havebeen sealed may be reserved for a room with limited controls.

In the case of forming flexible containers such as those described inThe Procter & Gamble Flexible Inflatable Container patent publications,partially-formed containers can be supplied to the system describedherein in the form of individual container blanks. The individualcontainer blanks can be conveyed on vehicles having appropriate holdersfor the same. The container blanks can then be conveyed to one or morestations for performing one or more of the following operations:decorating the container blanks; filling the product volume of thecontainer blanks with fluent products; closing the product volume afterfilling; inflating the structural support volumes; and sealing theinflated structural support volumes.

A quality assurance (QA) station can be a station that evaluates thestate of a given article/package to ensure that various specifications(related to the efficacy of the product/package/fluent material) arewithin certain targets or limitations. Such quality assurance stationscan include non-invasive imaging methods to check for package quality(ex: no scuff marks or liquid drips on the bottle), or for the qualityof the fluent material (homogeneity in the package or fill level orweight in the package), among others. Quality assurance stations canalso involve invasive testing—direct sampling of fluent product within acontainer, say, for microbial testing or homogeneity testing. Qualityassurance stations can also be used for in process measures and control.For example, when several portions are added separately to the bottle,the bottle can be weighed between ingredient additions to verify theadditions and potentially make necessary adjustments to the additionsystems for future bottles.

A station for weighing articles (that is, a checkweigher) can stop thevehicles and weigh the articles, however, it is more desirable to weighthe articles when the vehicles 24 carrying the articles are in motion,in order to increase the throughput of the system. A weigh-in-motionscale system and method for a linear synchronous motor conveyor has beendeveloped for this purpose. The weigh-in-motion system comprises: a) asupport structure for supporting the following: a weigh cell, a sectionof a linear synchronous motor conveyor track, a vehicle for transportingan object, and an object; and b) a weigh cell on the support structureon which a section of a linear synchronous motor conveyor track restsdirectly or indirectly, wherein the weigh cell is configured to weighvehicles and objects while in motion. The weigh cell can be any suitabletype of weigh cell. Weigh cells include but are not limited to straingage and electromagnetic force restoration (EMFR) weigh cells. In oneexample, the weigh cell is an EMFR weigh cell. EMFR weigh cells have theability to handle large dead loads (such as those of the section of thetrack containing propulsion coils) without losing accuracy, and a fastresponse time. A suitable EMFR weigh cell is available from Wipotec ofRoswell, Ga., U.S.A. Such a system is described further in a U.S. patentapplication that is filed on the same date as the present application.

If desired, the checkweigher may tare itself with no vehicles on itperiodically (e.g., every 5 minutes). That is to say that the “deadload” weight may be re-established periodically. This is advantageous tocompensate for changes in the “dead load” weight caused, for example, bywear, contamination on the linear synchronous motor track 22 or otherpart of the “dead load”, removal of contamination, or other factors thatmay change the apparent weight of the “dead load” equipment. If the“dead load” tare result is significantly different from a previousresult, an alarm may alert an operator and the control system mayprevent further weighing until action is taken.

In some cases, there are multiple vehicles 24 and each vehicle has atare weight. If the tare weight of the vehicles 24 are sufficientlysimilar, the method may comprise subtracting a fixed tare weight (thatapproximates the tare weight of all the vehicles) from the reading onthe weigh cell. In other cases, the method may further comprise:assigning an identification designation to each vehicle; and the step ofweighing further comprises identifying which vehicle is carrying anobject being weighed (such as by using the controller) and subtractingthe identified vehicle's tare weight from the reading on the weigh cell.In the latter case, it may be desirable to occasionally, periodically,or continually, send the empty vehicles to the checkweigher to check thetare weight of the vehicles to ensure that the vehicles' tare weightshave not changed due to wear, spillage, or other events. Also, each typeof vehicle may have a minimum and maximum acceptable tare weight. If avehicle's empty weight measurement is outside of that range, the vehiclemay be directed to a designated location other than on the checkweigher(such as a maintenance station), where an operator may be alerted. Thisis useful to prevent blocking use of the checkweigher when a problemoccurs with a vehicle.

The controller can also periodically send “calibration vehicles” (or“calibration cars”) to the checkweigher in order to verify weigh cellaccuracy. This particular conveyance system also provides the ability topermit periodic, or if desired continual, checking of the vehicleidentification (vehicle ID) and assigned tare weight.

Referring now to FIG. 9, the control system 62 can include a vehicleposition controller 104, a product scheduling controller 106, and atrack system controller 108, that are communicatively coupled with eachother and can cooperate to facilitate producing finished products. Thevehicle position controller 104 can include a positioning module 110 andan anti-collision module 112. The positioning module 110 can facilitatepositioning of the vehicles 24 at designated locations along the track22. Each of the vehicles 24 can have a unique identifier associated withit (uniqueness only needs to be relative to the other vehicles on thetrack) and with which the vehicle positioning module 110 can identifyit. As will be described in further detail below, the vehicle positioncontroller 104 can receive desired location coordinates from the tracksystem controller 108 for the vehicles 24. The vehicle positioncontroller 104 can move the vehicles 24 along the track 22 based uponthe location coordinates for each vehicle 24.

Referring now to the coordinates provided to the vehicle positioncontroller 104 by the track system controller 108 as described above,the coordinates provided comprise a specified position to which apre-defined centerline of the vehicle 24 should be directed. In oneexample, in an embodiment where the track 22 comprises a linear motorsystem and the vehicle 24 comprises a magnet, the pre-defined vehicle 24centerline may be defined as the midpoint of the magnet. In someinstances, such coordinates may be provided by the track systemcontroller 108 to the vehicle position controller 104 when the vehicle24 needs to be moved to a unit operation station so as to undergo anoperation at the unit operation station. Such an operation may requirealigning a part of the vehicle 24 or a part of the container or otherpayload carried by the vehicle 24 in a particular position in relationto equipment designed to execute the operation at the unit operationstation. Examples of this positioning for operations include, but arenot limited to: positioning the centerpoint of the mouth of a bottle orother container underneath a fill nozzle; positioning a cap-carryingfeature of the vehicle 24 underneath a capping apparatus; or positioningthe centerpoint of a desired position for a cap on a containerunderneath a capping apparatus. In these operations, the track systemcontroller 108 must provide to the vehicle position controller 104 a setof coordinates that, as described above, corresponds to the positionwhere the pre-defined vehicle 24 centerline must be so that the desiredalignment is achieved. Such alignment sometimes achieves, but often doesnot achieve, positioning the pre-defined vehicle 24 centerline in aposition directly in relation to equipment that will perform anoperation. Often, such alignment involves positioning the pre-definedvehicle 24 centerline in a different position to achieve aligninganother feature of the vehicle or its payload with equipment that willperform a transformation, thereby typically positioning the pre-definedvehicle 24 centerline in a position that is offset from the position ofequipment that will perform a transformation. The aforementioned offsetis related to the difference in position of the feature on the vehicle24 to be aligned and the position of the pre-defined vehicle 24centerline. It is to be appreciated that, even when aligning the sameparticular feature (e.g. the mouth of a container carried by a vehicle24) with the same particular equipment (e.g. a filler nozzle) that willperform a transformation, the aforementioned offset may vary dependingon features of the vehicle 24, features of the payload carried by thevehicle 24, the positioning of the payload carried by the vehicle 24 onthe same vehicle 24, or a combination thereof.

To mitigate the problem of the variation in the aforementioned offset,the track system controller 108 may be configured to store configurationparameters. Some of these configuration parameters may comprise a singleparameter related to each unit operation station, where said singleparameter specifies a selection of what sub-feature of a vehicle 24should be aligned with the unit operation station when the vehicle 24 isto be directed to the unit operation station so as to undergo anoperation. For example, a particular parameter for a particular unitoperation station may specify that the center of the fill mouth of acontainer be aligned when a vehicle 24 is directed to a unit operationstation so as to undergo an operation. Furthermore, additionalconfiguration parameters may exist. Such additional configurationparameters may comprise information regarding the relationship between asub-feature of a type of vehicle 24 and the pre-defined vehicle 24centerline, or information regarding the relationship between asub-component of a container or other material and a pre-definedcenterline of the same component. Examples of relationships betweensub-components of a container and a pre-defined centerline of the samecomponent include, but are not limited to, fill mouth position of acontainer with respect to a container centerline, or desired capposition of a container with respect to container centerline. Examplesof relationship between a sub-feature of a type of vehicle 24 and thepre-defined vehicle 24 centerline include, but are not limited to, theexpected position of the centerline of a container with respect to thepre-defined vehicle 24 centerline, or the expected position of acap-carrying feature with respect to the pre-defined vehicle 24centerline. Such additional configuration parameters may be configuredin the track system controller 108, or may be configured in the productscheduling controller 106, or may be configured elsewhere. In the casewhere the additional configuration parameters are configured in theproduct scheduling controller 106, information relating to the relevantadditional configuration parameters may be communicated to the tracksystem controller 108 with each route that is communicated from theproduct scheduling controller 106 to the track system controller 108.The problem of variation in the aforementioned offset can therefore bemitigated by the track system controller 108 performing a calculation,where the calculation applies a shift to a position of a unit operationstation, where the shift is based on a configuration parameter selectinga desired sub-feature of a vehicle 24 or its payload to align withequipment at said unit operation station, and where the resultingshifted unit operation station position is used to generate coordinatesto provide to the vehicle position controller 104 so as to cause thevehicle 24 to move to a position where the desired sub-feature of thevehicle 24 or its payload is properly aligned with equipment at the unitoperation station. Such a calculated shift in unit operation stationposition coordinates is advantageous so as to avoid the need to store aset of coordinates for every unit operation station for every possiblecombination of type of vehicle 24 and its various possible payloads. Inthis way, the amount of unit operation station position coordinates thatmust be configured in the track system controller 108 is minimized, asis the effort required when introducing a new type of vehicle 24, or newpossible payloads to be carried by vehicles 24. It is to be appreciatedthat the calculated shift in unit operation station may also becalculated based on additional information. For example, additionalinformation may comprise information that was measured. As a specificexample, the additional information may comprise a measured position ofa container on a vehicle 24 with respect to a pre-defined vehicle 24centerline of the same vehicle 24.

The control system 62 can be a software-based control system or acomputer-based (or computing device-based) control system. Any suitablecomputing device or combination of computing devices (not shown), aswould be understood in the art can be used, including withoutlimitation, a custom chip, an embedded processing device, a tabletcomputing device, a personal data assistant (PDA), a desktop, a laptop,a microcomputer, a minicomputer, a server, a mainframe, or any othersuitable programmable device. Of course, it is understood that softwarewill run on such devices. In various embodiments disclosed herein, asingle component can be replaced by multiple components and multiplecomponents can be replaced by a single component to perform a givenfunction or functions. Except where such substitution would not beoperative, such substitution is within the intended scope of theembodiments.

The computing device can include a processor that can be any suitabletype of processing unit, for example a general purpose centralprocessing unit (CPU), a reduced instruction set computer (RISC), aprocessor that has a pipeline or multiple processing capabilityincluding having multiple cores, a complex instruction set computer(CISC), a digital signal processor (DSP), an application specificintegrated circuit (ASIC), a programmable logic devices (PLD), and afield programmable gate array (FPGA), among others. The computingresources can also include distributed computing devices, cloudcomputing resources, and virtual computing resources in general.

The computing device can also include one or more memories, for exampleread only memory (ROM), random access memory (RAM), cache memoryassociated with the processor, or other memories such as dynamic RAM(DRAM), static ram (SRAM), programmable ROM (PROM), electricallyerasable PROM (EEPROM), flash memory, a removable memory card or disk, asolid state drive, and so forth. The computing device can also includestorage media such as a storage device that can be configured to havemultiple modules, such as magnetic disk drives, floppy drives, tapedrives, hard drives, optical drives and media, magneto-optical drivesand media, compact disk drives, Compact Disk Read Only Memory (CD-ROM),Compact Disk Recordable (CD-R), Compact Disk Rewriteable (CD-RW), asuitable type of Digital Versatile Disk (DVD) or BluRay disk, and soforth. Storage media such as flash drives, solid state hard drives,redundant array of individual disks (RAID), virtual drives, networkeddrives and other memory means including storage media on the processor,or memories are also contemplated as storage devices. It can beappreciated that such memory can be internal or external with respect tooperation of the disclosed embodiments. It can be appreciated thatcertain portions of the processes described herein can be performedusing instructions stored on a computer-readable medium or media thatdirect a computer system to perform the process steps. Non-transitorycomputer-readable media, as used herein, comprises all computer-readablemedia except for transitory, propagating signals.

Network and communication interfaces can be configured to transmit to,or receive data from, other computing devices across a network. Thenetwork and communication interfaces can be an Ethernet interface, aradio interface, a Universal Serial Bus (USB) interface, or any othersuitable communications interface and can include receivers,transmitters, and transceivers. For purposes of clarity, a transceivercan be referred to as a receiver or a transmitter when referring to onlythe input or only the output functionality of the transceiver. Examplecommunication interfaces can include wired data transmission links suchas Ethernet and TCP/IP. The communication interfaces can includewireless protocols for interfacing with private or public networks. Forexample, the network and communication interfaces and protocols caninclude interfaces for communicating with private wireless networks suchas a WiFi network, one of the IEEE 802.11x family of networks, oranother suitable wireless network. The network and communicationinterfaces can include interfaces and protocols for communicating withpublic wireless networks, using for example wireless protocols used bycellular network providers, including Code Division Multiple Access(CDMA) and Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM). A computingdevice can use network and communication interfaces to communicate withhardware modules such as a database or data store, or one or moreservers or other networked computing resources. Data can be encrypted orprotected from unauthorized access.

In various configurations, the computing device can include a system busfor interconnecting the various components of the computing device, orthe computing device can be integrated into one or more chips such as aprogrammable logic device or application specific integrated circuit(ASIC). The system bus can include a memory controller, a local bus, ora peripheral bus for supporting input and output devices, andcommunication interfaces. Example input and output devices includekeyboards, keypads, gesture or graphical input devices, motion inputdevices, touchscreen interfaces, one or more displays, audio units,voice recognition units, vibratory devices, computer mice, and any othersuitable user interface.

The processor and memory can include non-volatile memory for storingcomputer-readable instructions, data, data structures, program modules,code, microcode, and other software components for storing thecomputer-readable instructions in non-transitory computer-readablemediums in connection with the other hardware components for carryingout the methodologies described herein. Software components can includesource code, compiled code, interpreted code, executable code, staticcode, dynamic code, encrypted code, or any other suitable type of codeor computer instructions implemented using any suitable high-level,low-level, object-oriented, visual, compiled, or interpreted programminglanguage.

Referring again to FIG. 9, to facilitate routing of the vehicles 24along the track 22, the vehicle position controller 104 can controloperation of the plurality of coils 58 a and the transition portions 50c (e.g., the flipper members 74). The vehicle position controller 104can also prevent collisions between the vehicles 24 as they arepositioned along the track 22. For example, the vehicle positioncontroller 104 can track the positions and/or speed of the vehicles 24on the track 22. If a vehicle 24 begins approaching another vehicle 24in a manner that could cause a collision, the vehicle positioncontroller 104 can adjust the speed (increasing or decreasing the speed)of the approaching vehicle 24 and/or the approached vehicle 24 toprevent a collision. It is to be appreciated that the vehicle positioncontroller 104 can be an on-board controller that is original to thetrack 22 and built together with the track 22. In one embodiment, thevehicle controller 104 can be provided with the track from themanufacturer of the track 22 (e.g., MagneMotion, Inc. of Devens, Mass.,U.S.A.).

The control system 62 may be configured to receive orders in one or moreof the following manners: via post office mail, via e-mail, via awebsite, via an application on a smart phone, via manual entry, and viaproduction demand software (such as SAP software available from SAP SE).

The product scheduling controller 106 can be configured to assign acontainer type and fluent material type (e.g., a finished product) foreach empty vehicle 24. The product scheduling controller 106 can also beconfigured to assign a desired route that achieves the assigned finishedproduct. The track system controller 108 can be configured to route thevehicles 24 around the track 22 and operate the unit operation stations84, 86, 88, 90 based upon the finished product and route assigned to thevehicles 24.

The control system 62 may be configured as a central assignmentmechanism that pre-assigns independent routes for the vehicles based ondemand data. The control system 62: receives demand for finishedproducts to be made on the track system; determines a route for avehicle, wherein the route is determined based on a status of one ormore unit operation stations; and causes a vehicle to be propelled toprogress along the determined route to create one or more of thedemanded finished products, and delivers the finished products to anunloading station. It should be understood that these steps can betaking place in the above order, or in any order, provided that at leastsome demand for finished products to be made is first received.Generally, when there are multiple vehicles being routed, the controlsystem can be performing such steps for the different vehicles. Thesevehicles may be at different stages of going through these steps at anygiven time (and the control system can be executing any of these stepsfor the various vehicles at any given time).

The status of the unit operation station(s) can comprise: (a) the stateof readiness of a unit operation station (whether the unit operationstation is broken down, or not); (b) one or more capabilities of theunit operation station (that is, a description of the unitoperation(s)); (c) information concerning operations expected orscheduled to be completed at one or more unit operation stations in thefuture (including the progress of other vehicles along their routes);(d) information concerning the capacity utilization of the unitoperation station (that is, how much of its capacity is used relative toits full capacity, or conversely how often it is idle relative to itsfull capacity); (e) information concerning the capacity utilization ofother unit operation stations (utilization of other unit operationstations (similar or dissimilar)); (f) information concerning theavailability of raw materials (e.g., fluent material(s), labels, etc.)to the unit operation station; and (g) information concerning expectedmaintenance activities involving the unit operation station.

The determined route may, in some cases, have one or more constraints onarriving at one or more unit operation stations before one or more othervehicles or after one or more other vehicles. In other cases, thedetermined route may not have any constraints on arriving at one or moreunit operation stations before one or more other vehicles or after oneor more other vehicles.

The determined route is determined based on status information of avehicle. Such status information may include: the vehicle'scontainer-holding interface type, maximum velocity of the vehicle,maximum acceleration of the vehicle, maximum container weight that canbe held by the vehicle, maximum container size, and any other relevantinformation about the vehicle. The determined route can be selected froma subset of all possible routes, and more particularly is selected froma set of all possible routes that will result in creating a demandedfinished product. The determined route is selected by comparingpotential routes where such comparison takes into account theutilization or capacity of one or more unit operation stations and theselected route may be selected to best utilize the capacity of one ormore unit operation stations.

The determined route may take into consideration the routes assigned toother vehicles 24, including the extent to which the other vehicles haveactually progressed along their planned routes, so as to avoidcongestion caused by excessive vehicles reaching a similar location at asimilar time, and so as to ensure vehicles will arrive in a desiredsequence where appropriate.

The determined route may be determined using an algorithm (described asfollows), where the algorithm may comprise a recursive method so as tobe applicable to a wide range of track configurations and unit operationstation configurations without requiring modifications to thealgorithm's recursive method. The algorithm may implement a system whereunit operation stations demand partially or completely finished productsfrom other unit operation stations so as to enable the unit operationstations to contribute towards creating finished products specified inthe step of receiving demand for finished products to be made. Thedemand from the unit operation stations may describe needed products andtimes when those products may be needed. (The loading unit operationstations will, however, typically receive demand for vehicles, ratherthan partially or completely finished products.) The demand from theunit operation stations makes it possible for the route-determiningalgorithm to only consider routes connecting unit operation stationswith appropriate demand, substantially reducing the time and processingpower required to determine a route as compared to an algorithm thatwould evaluate the merits of every possible way to route a vehicle alongthe track. Such an algorithm could solve the problem of determining abest route from many possible ways to route a vehicle along a track (100billion, 1 trillion, or many more ways being possible in someembodiments) in a short period of time (e.g., less than one second), ora very short period of time (100 milliseconds, 50 milliseconds, 5milliseconds, or less in some embodiments). Such an algorithm may takethe form of several embodiments, some of which may also assign aquantity or priority to the demanded products at unit operationstations, and some of which may calculate such a priority based onattributes of an order. Such attributes of an order may comprise aselected shipping method or requested delivery time.

An example of the vehicle position controller 104, the productscheduling controller 106, and the track system controller 108cooperating to create a finished product will now be described. First,when the vehicle 24 is empty (either due to system start-up or beingemptied at the unloading station), the track system controller 108 canrequest, from the product scheduling controller 106, the next finishedproduct to be assigned to the vehicle 24. The product schedulingcontroller 106 can assign a finished product to the vehicle 24 and canprovide the desired route for the vehicle 24 to take to complete thefinished product. The track system controller 108 can then providecoordinates to the vehicle position controller 104 that will route thevehicle 24 to one of the container loading stations 84. The vehicleposition controller 104 then routes the vehicle 24 to the containerloading station 84 (via the designated coordinates) and notifies thetrack system controller 108 when the vehicle 24 has reached itsdestination. The track system controller 108 can then facilitateoperation of the container loading station 84. After the container 38 isloaded onto the vehicle 24, the track system controller 108 can providecoordinates to the vehicle position controller 104 that will route thevehicle 24 to one of the filling/capping stations 86. The vehicleposition controller 104 then routes the vehicle 24 to thefilling/capping station 86 (via the designated coordinates) and notifiesthe track system controller 108 when the vehicle 24 has reached itsdestination. The track system controller 108 can then facilitateoperation of the filling/capping station 86. After the container 38 isfilled and capped, the track system controller 108 can providecoordinates to the vehicle position controller 104 that will route thevehicle 24 to one of the decoration stations 88. The vehicle positioncontroller 104 then routes the vehicle 24 to the decoration station 88(via the designated coordinates) and notifies the track systemcontroller 108 when the vehicle 24 has reached its destination. Thetrack system controller 108 can then facilitate operation of thedecoration station 88. After the container 38 is decorated, the tracksystem controller 108 can provide coordinates to the vehicle positioncontroller 104 that will route the vehicle 24 to one of unloadingstations 90. The vehicle position controller 104 then routes the vehicle24 to the unloading station 90 (via the designated coordinates) andnotifies the track system controller 108 when the vehicle 24 has reachedits destination. The track system controller 108 can then facilitateoperation of the unloading station 90. After the container 38 is removedfrom the vehicle 24, the track system controller 108 can request, fromthe product scheduling controller 106, the next finished product to beassigned to the vehicle 24.

In some embodiments, the track system controller 108 can deviate thevehicle 24 from the desired path (assigned by the product schedulingcontroller 106) to overcome certain problems, such as a traffic jam,sequencing violation (sequencing is described below), and/or a defect orreject condition (e.g., bottle missing, cap missing, cap misaligned,etc.). The deviated path can be determined by the product schedulingcontroller 106 and/or the track system controller 108.

It is to be appreciated that the vehicle position controller 104, theproduct scheduling controller 106, and the track system controller 108can facilitate simultaneous routing of the vehicles 24 around the track22 such that the containers 38 are at various stages of production. Tofacilitate effective and efficient simultaneous routing of the vehicles24, the vehicle position controller 104, the product schedulingcontroller 106, and the track system controller 108 can shareinformation about the vehicles 24 and/or containers 38. For example, thetrack system controller 108 can share, with the product schedulingcontroller 106, the positions of the vehicles 24, the production statusof each container 38, and/or any route deviations. The productscheduling controller 106 can share, with the track system controller108, the finished product and route assignments for the vehicles 24.

As described above, the product scheduling controller 106 can assign acontainer type, a closure type, a fluent material type, a decorationtype, and a route for each empty vehicle 24 identified by the tracksystem controller 108. It is to be appreciated that although thisembodiment describes assignment of a container type, a closure type, afluent material type, and a decoration type, other embodiments mayspecify other finished product attributes. Other finished productattributes may include values related to the dimensions of a containeror any part or parts thereof, values related to the mass of one or moreparts of the product at one or more stages of completion including thefinished product, fill quantity or level, or additional attributessimilar to those previously or subsequently described such as a frontlabel type and a back label type. Still more other finished productattributes may include targets or acceptable ranges of values for anyone or more of the aforementioned finished product attributes or otherfinished product attributes. Furthermore, other finished productattributes may include parameters related to setup of unit operationstations to be used during operating on the finished product specified(for example, bottle height will dictate the height to which a fillernozzle will be adjusted).

One embodiment of a control routine implemented by the productscheduling controller 106 in assigning a container type, a closure type,a fluent material type, a decoration type, and a route for each emptyvehicle 24 is generally illustrated in FIGS. 10, 11, 12, 13A, and 13Bwhich will now be discussed. The product scheduling process can beseparated into four phases—a Sequencing Phase (FIG. 10), a DemandPropagation Phase (FIG. 11), an Effective Route Identification Phase(FIG. 12), and a Route Ranking Phase (FIGS. 13A and 13B). Generally,during the Sequencing Phase, production schedules can be assigned toeach unloading station 90. During the Demand Propagation Phase, unitoperation stations are identified that have or will have demand so as tocontribute to one or more of the finished products specified by eachunloading station's 90 production schedule. During the Effective RouteIdentification Phase, a plurality of effective routes for the currentvehicle 24 are identified based on the unit operation stations' demandinformation. During the Route Ranking Phase, the best route and relatedfinished product can be selected from the plurality of effective routesthat are generated during the Effective Route Identification Phase.

Referring now to FIG. 10, the Sequencing Phase will now be discussed ingreater detail. First, a production order can be provided to the productscheduling controller 106 (step 200). The production order can includethe quantity of packages that are desired and the types of finishedproducts that are to be provided in each package. Further, theproduction order can be made in units larger than an individual packagesuch as in units of cases or pallets. It is understood that a case orpallet may contain the same or different packages. The sequencing phasecan sequence and prioritize the production of specific packages tosupport the overall production order. Prioritization may take intoaccount the sequence of packages required to assemble a case or pallet.In addition, prioritization may take into account the urgency of eachunit of larger order. Each package may include different types and/orquantities of finished products. In describing the types of finishedproducts that are to be provided within a package, the production ordermay additionally specify sequencing information. This sequencinginformation may either specify an explicit sequence of arrival ofproducts, or specify that the sequence of product arrivals for thepackage is unimportant, or specify a combination thereof in which forexample one or more first products must arrive before one or more secondproducts but in any sequence with respect to one or more third products.In one embodiment, the production order can be generated from a customerorder that is received at an upstream computer system (e.g., from aprocurement software program). The upstream computer system can conveythe production order to the product scheduling controller 106 which canthen allocate packages to the unloading stations 90 for fulfillment(205). Packages are assigned to an unloading station 90 in a specificsequence, thusly establishing a production schedule for each unloadingstation 90. This sequence specifies the order of production of packagesat each unloading station 90, but does not specify the sequence ofproduction of packages by the overall track system 20.

To further explain using a specific example, if a production orderdescribes packages 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, packages may be assigned to afirst unloading station 90 in the sequence of 2, 1, 5, and packages maybe assigned to a second unloading station 90 in the sequence of 3, 6, 4,but the track system 20 may produce the packages in order 2, 1, 3, 5, 6,4 or order 2, 3, 1, 6, 5, 4 or order 3, 6, 4, 2, 1, 5 or any other orderthat does not violate the package sequencing of a particular unloadingstation 90. It should be noted that in the previously described specificexample, even though package production is described as a sequencedprocess, finished products feeding multiple packages can be producedsimultaneously, such that more than one package is in the process ofbeing produced at the same time, so the sequence described refers to thecompletion of the process of producing a package, and it is possiblethat more than one package may be completed at nearly the exact samemoment in time.

Once at least one of the unloading stations 90 has been assigned apackage, the track system controller 108 can select a vehicle 24 forassignment of a route and associated finished product thereto (thecurrent vehicle). The vehicle 24 can be selected from among a pluralityof vehicles 24 on the track 22 (e.g., when the track system 20 is firstinitialized/started up) or when the vehicle 24 has completed thepreviously assigned finished product (e.g., after leaving the unloadingstation 90). Most typically, the selected vehicle is empty. In somecases, however, a vehicle 24 may have aborted a previous route duringroute execution (e.g. because a unit operation station breaks down), sothat vehicle 24 may be selected for assignment of a new route eventhough it is not empty. Once the vehicle 24 has been selected, the tracksystem controller 108 can request, from the product schedulingcontroller 106, the route and associated finished product that is to beassigned to that vehicle 24. Each route request describes the type ofvehicle and any operations that have already been completed on thatvehicle on a previous route that included loading a container but didnot include unloading the container.

The Demand Propagation Phase (215) will now be discussed in greaterdetail and with reference to FIG. 10 and the other drawing figures. Inone embodiment, hereafter referred to as the Assignment-Time CalculatedDemand Embodiment, the Demand Propagation Phase (215) is entered uponreceiving the route request from the track system controller 108. Inanother embodiment, hereafter referred to as the Pre-Calculated DemandEmbodiment, the Demand Propagation Phase (215) can be entered withoutwaiting for a route request from the track system controller 108, sothat a route can be assigned in response to a route request from thetrack system controller 108 in less time, because the Demand PropagationPhase (215) will have already been completed. This is possible becausethe Demand Propagation Phase (215) does not depend on having previouslyselected a vehicle 24 for route assignment. A disadvantage of thePre-Calculated Demand Embodiment is that it may require more computingoverall, since the Demand Propagation Phase (215) may be executed moretimes than needed. Although the events triggering the Assignment-TimeCalculated Demand Embodiment and the Pre-Calculated Demand embodimentdiffer, the Demand Calculation process is the same and will next bedescribed in greater detail.

First, the product scheduling controller 106 can identify all of thefinished products that are needed next at each of the available (e.g.not broken down) unloading stations 90 to fulfill the unloadingstation's 90 production schedule in the order specified by the unloadingstation's 90 production schedule, and establishes demand itemscorresponding to these products (300). These demand items can beunderstood to describe the finished products that are currently assignedto each unloading station 90 and which can next be loaded into thepackage without interfering with the order of the overall package asdefined by the production schedule, and where no vehicle 24 has alreadybeen assigned a route and associated finished product to therebyfulfill. The demand items may also be partially finished products thathave completed one or more, but not all, of the steps in the process ofcreating the finished products, or empty vehicles (in the case ofloading unit operation stations). Thusly, it can be understood thatdemand items 300 comprise descriptions of products which may be finishedproducts or partially finished products.

Furthermore, each demand item also describes a time span. The time spandescribed by each demand item specifies the time range during which sucha product should arrive at the unit operation station, in this case theunit operation station being an unloading station 90. This time rangeensures that the demand item does not describe a need for a product thatwould arrive earlier than a prerequisite product, nor later than apostrequisite product. Through additional processing to be describedbelow, this time range can more generally be described as representing atime range when the arrival of the described product would not violateany system constraints.

Each demand item is furthermore associated with a particular unitoperation station, such that it could be said that the unit operationstation has one or more demand items, or that the unit operation stationhas no demand items. Each demand item is furthermore associated with aparticular type of operation which would be performed at the associatedunit operation station. Once the product scheduling controller 106 hascompleted establishing all appropriate demand items for each unloadingstation 90, the furthest downstream unit operation station group isselected for demand propagation, hereafter referred to as the UnitOperation Station Group Projecting Demand. The demand items associatedwith the Unit Operation Station Projecting Demand now undergo arefinement (310) so as to not include any time during which thepreviously scheduled vehicles 24 are expected to result in the UnitOperation Station Projecting Demand's infeed queue being at fullcapacity, wherein this refinement (310) may result in any of thefollowing: no modification to the demand items; splitting demand itemsinto two or more additional demand items wherein the additional demanditems are identical to their original demand item in all but time span;shortening the associated time spans by adjusting one or both of thebeginning or end times; or eliminating demand items altogether. Next,each of the demand items associated with each of the unit operationstations in the Unit Operation Station Group Projecting Demand isevaluated. The product scheduling controller 106 can then identify thefurthest downstream unit operation station group that is upstream of theUnit Operation Station Group Projecting Demand (i.e., the unit operationstations a vehicle 24 might encounter immediately before proceeding to aunit operation station in the Unit Operation Station Group ProjectingDemand), hereafter referred to as the Unit Operation Station GroupPropagating Demand.

Each unit operation station group may also have associated therewith arepresentation of a non-existent unit operation station (a virtual unitoperation station). Since not every container needs to receive atreatment at every unit operation station group, the virtual unitoperation station is merely a mechanism in the computer program to allowthe container to by-pass one or more unit operation station groups, orto not have a treatment performed by such unit operation station. Forexample, if the containers provided into the system comprise pre-labeledbottles, there will be no need for the container to be labeled at adecoration station.

In the example of FIG. 1, the furthest downstream unit operation stationgroup that is upstream of the unloading stations 90 that have demanditems can be the decoration stations 88. The product schedulingcontroller 106 can then select one unit operation station from the UnitOperation Station Group Propagating Demand, hereafter referred to as theUnit Operation Station Propagating Demand. The product schedulingcontroller 106 can then determine whether the Unit Operation StationPropagating Demand is currently available (315) or if it supports one ormore operations that will establish one or more attributes of theproduct described by the demand item currently being evaluated (320). Ifthe Unit Operation Station Propagating Demand is currently unavailableor if it does not support one or more operations that will establish oneor more attributes of the product described by the demand item currentlybeing evaluated, the evaluation of this demand item being processed bythe Unit Operation Station Propagating Demand is complete. If the UnitOperation Propagating Demand is currently available and supports one ormore operations that will establish one or more attributes of theproduct described by the demand item, the product scheduling controller106 can calculate the time delay (330) which can be the time it takesfor the Unit Operation Station Propagating Demand to complete itsoperation on the container (e.g., the operation time) in addition to thetravel time from the Unit Operation Station Propagating Demand to adownstream interface point on primary transport portion 76 in additionto the travel time from an upstream interface point on primary transportportion 76 to the unit operation station associated with the demanditem. Thusly, the time span specified by the demand item being evaluatedhaving been offset by the above-described time delay (330) can be takento mean the time range during which the operation can begin at the unitoperation station.

The interface points are advantageous, because they reduce the number ofrequired configurations that must be established and maintained by theproduct scheduling controller. Without the interface points, the productscheduling controller must store a configuration for expected traveltime to move a vehicle from every unit operation station in a unitoperation station group to every unit operation station in an adjacentlydownstream unit operation station group. For the track configurationshown in FIG. 1, considering only such configurations for unit operationstations 86, there being four unit operation stations 88 in theadjacently downstream unit operation station group, each of the fourunit operation stations 86 would require four expected travel timeconfigurations, totaling 16 expected travel time configurations. Withinterface points, the product scheduling controller only storesconfigurations for expected travel time to the next interface point, andfrom interface points to unit operation stations in the adjacentlydownstream unit operation station group. Thus, in the example of theunit operation stations 86, only eight configurations need to be stored,comprising four expected travel times to 13 (1 from each unit operationstation 86) and four expected travel times from 13 (1 to each unitoperation station 88). The benefits of using interface points are evengreater on larger track systems. For example, if there were 100 unitoperation stations 86 and 90 unit operation stations 88, there would be9,000 configurations required without interface points, but only 190configurations required with interface points.

A new demand item can then be created (340), where the new demand itemis associated with the Unit Operation Station Propagating Demand, has atime span specified as the time span of the demand item being evaluatedminus a time delay (330). The new demand item's described product is theproduct described by the demand item being evaluated minus the attributeor attributes established by the operation to be completed at the UnitOperation Station Propagating Demand. The new demand item's time spanwill then undergo a first refinement (345) so as to not include any timeduring which the previously scheduled vehicles 24 are expected to resultin the Unit Operation Station Propagating Demand's infeed queue being atfull capacity, wherein this first refinement (345) may result in any ofthe following: no modification to the new demand item; splitting the newdemand item into two or more additional demand items wherein theadditional demand items are identical to the new demand item in all buttime span; shortening the time span by adjusting one or both of thebeginning or end times; or eliminating the new demand item altogether.

This first refinement (345) and the refinement (310) are useful, becausethey accomplish avoiding demand during times when assigning a vehicle 24to meet that demand would result in exceeding the capacity of the UnitOperation Station Propagating Demand's infeed queue. This could causevehicles 24 to block portions or all of track section (secondarytransport portion) 78 and/or portions or all of track section (primarytransport portion) 76. Furthermore, this first refinement can similarlyrefine the time span of the new demand item so as to avoid demand duringtimes when assigning a vehicle 24 to meet that demand would result inthat vehicle 24 causing the Unit Operation Station Propagating Demand'sinfeed queue to exceed its capacity, wherein such a capacity violationwould be caused either directly by the arrival of that vehicle 24 orindirectly by the cascading impact of previously scheduled butsubsequently arriving other vehicles 24, and where such capacity isrepresented by a configuration parameter associated with the UnitOperation Station Propagating Demand.

Upon completion of the first refinement (345), the set of any remainingof the new demand item or additional demand items, hereaftercollectively referred to as the Set of Remaining Demand Items, can beunderstood to represent time spans when beginning the operation on thedescribed product would not violate any system constraints. The Set ofRemaining Demand Items is again time shifted, this time to adjustaccording to previously scheduled vehicles 24 so that the resulting timespans represent time spans when arrival of the described product at theUnit Operation Station Propagating Demand's infeed queue would notviolate any system constraints, thusly taking into account time when avehicle 24 would be waiting in the Unit Operation Station PropagatingDemand's infeed queue prior to beginning the operation, which can beknown based on previously assigned routes to other vehicles 24 combinedwith vehicle 24 position information shared from the track systemcontroller 108 with the product scheduling controller 106. This timeshift applied to the Set of Remaining Demand Items marks the completionof the evaluation of this demand item being processed by the UnitOperation Station Propagating Demand.

When the evaluation of this demand item being processed by the UnitOperation Station Propagating Demand is complete (e.g. the UnitOperation Station Propagating Demand has been found to either beunsuitable for this demand item or else new demand items were createdand refined), the product scheduling controller 106 can then proceed toevaluate this demand item being processed by each of the other unitoperation stations in the Unit Operation Station Group PropagatingDemand by the same process as was used to evaluate this demand itembeing processed by the Unit Operation Station Propagating demand.

When the evaluation of this demand item being processed by each of theunit operation stations in the Unit Operation Station Group PropagatingDemand is complete, the product scheduling controller 106 proceeds tocontinue evaluating each demand item associated with the Unit OperationStation Projecting Demand being processed by each of the unit operationstations in the Unit Operation Station Group Propagating Demand.

When the evaluation of each demand item associated with the UnitOperation Station Projecting Demand by each of the unit operationstations in the Unit Operation Station Group Propagating Demand has beencompleted, the product scheduling controller 106 evaluates each of thedemand items associated with each of the other unit operation stationsin the Unit Operation Station Group Projecting Demand being processed byeach of the unit operation stations in the Unit Operation Station GroupPropagating Demand. When this is completed, demand propagation for thedemand items associated with the unit operation stations in the UnitOperation Station Group Projecting Demand is complete, and new demanditems may have been created that are associated with unit operationstations in the Unit Operation Station Group Propagating Demand. Next,the Demand Propagation Phase continues with the product schedulingcontroller 106 selecting the Unit Operation Station Group PropagatingDemand as the Unit Operation Station Group Projecting Demand, andselecting the furthest downstream unit operation station group that isupstream of the Unit Operation Station Group Propagating Demand as theUnit Operation Station Group Propagating Demand, and similarlycompleting demand propagation for any demand items associated with thenew Unit Operation Station Group Projecting Demand. This process repeatsuntil the furthest upstream unit operation station group would beselected as the Unit Operation Station Group Projecting Demand, at whichpoint the Demand Propagation Phase is complete.

In another embodiment of the Demand Propagation Phase, an additionaldemand aggregation step may be executed in between processing demand foreach unit operation station group (e.g. each time a different unitoperation station group is selected as the Unit Operation Station GroupProjecting Demand). The demand aggregation step will examine the demanditems associated with each unit operation station in the newly selectedUnit Operation Station Group Projecting Demand, and, after accountingfor differences in travel time from an upstream interface point, createsa set of new demand items based on this set of existing demand items,where the set of new demand items describes time periods when productsarriving at the interface point would not violate any systemconstraints. In establishing the set of new demand items, duplicate timespans for similar products can be eliminated, and adjacent demand itemscan be merged, reducing the number of demand items to process. This isadvantageous to reduce the processing time required to complete theDemand Propagation Phase. When such an additional demand aggregationstep is used, the set of new demand items is projected to the UnitOperation Station Group Propagating Demand instead of the demand itemsassociated with the Unit Operation Station Group Projecting Demand, andthe calculated time delay 330 does not factor in the travel time fromthe interface point to the Unit Operation Station Projecting Demand,since this travel time was already accounted for.

In yet another embodiment of the Demand Propagation Phase, demand itemsmay also specify a quantity of the described product. When thesequantities are propagated with their associated demand items, additionaldemand information is available to the subsequent phases of the productscheduling process, which can help to better optimize productionefficiency, and can be used to assign more than one route withoutexecuting the Demand Propagation Phase in between route assignments aswould normally be required. This can be advantageous so as to reduce theamount of computing the product scheduling controller 106 must perform.

The Effective Route Identification Phase will now be discussed ingreater detail with reference to FIG. 12. Upon receiving the routerequest 400 from the track system controller 108, the route request 400including a description of the type of vehicle and state of assembly,the product scheduling controller 106 can enter the Effective RouteIdentification Phase. Firstly, if the Demand Propagation Phase has notalready been completed as in the case of the pre-calculated demandembodiment, the Demand Propagation Phase is now completed. A projectedroute time is established as the time when the route request 400 wasreceived by the product scheduling controller 106. A current producttype is established as the vehicle and state of assembly described bythe route request. For each unit operation station in the furthestupstream unit operation station group, the iterative routeidentification process 405 is completed.

The iterative route identification process 405 starts with the productscheduling controller 106 establishing a potential route buffer, andcopying into it the contents of the previous potential route buffer ifone exists 410. The iterative route identification 405 process continueswith the product scheduling controller 106 modifying the projected routetime by adding the time it takes to travel from an upstream interfacepoint to the current unit operation station. The iterative routeidentification process continues with the product scheduling controller106 determining if the current unit operation station has a demand itemdescribing the current product type where the associated time spanincludes the projected route time 415, where such a demand item ishereafter referred to as the Relevant Demand Item. If a Relevant DemandItem does not exist, the potential route buffer is deleted 420 and nofurther action is taken by this instance of the iterative routeidentification process 405. If a Relevant Demand Item does exist, theiterative route identification process 405 continues by addinginformation describing the current unit operation station and theoperation specified by the Relevant Demand Item to the potential routebuffer 425.

If the current unit operation station is not part of the furthestdownstream unit operation station group 430, a new instance of theiterative route identification process 405 is started for each unitoperation station in the unit operation station group immediatelydownstream of the unit operation station group to which the current unitoperation station belongs, where the new instances of the iterativeroute identification process 405 are provided with projected route timesthat have been amended to add the time a vehicle would spend waiting atthe current unit operation station's infeed queue during execution ofthis route wherein this time is based on previously scheduled vehicles24 and information shared from the track system controller 108, the timea vehicle would spend undergoing the operation specified by the RelevantDemand Item at the current unit operation station, and the travel timefrom the current unit operation station to a downstream interface point.Likewise, the new instances of the iterative route identificationprocess are provided with this instance's potential route buffer to copyinto their new potential route buffers. Likewise, the product typeconsidered by the new instances of the iterative route identificationprocess are taken to be the product type considered by this instance ofthe iterative route identification process, modified to include the oneor more attributes established by the operation specified by theRelevant Demand Item. If the current unit operation station belongs tothe furthest downstream unit operation station group, the potentialroute buffer is added to a list of effective routes 435, which completesthis instance of the iterative route identification process 405.

Once each instance of the iterative route identification process 405 hascompleted, the list of effective routes comprises a list of allpotential routes the vehicle 24 specified in the route request 400 maybe assigned, which is to say the list of all potential routes that willdeliver a product to a package specified by the production order withoutviolating any system constraints. Once each instance of the iterativeroute identification process 405 has completed 440, the Effective RouteIdentification Phase is complete and the Route Ranking Phase begins 445.In one embodiment, the Effective Route Identification Phase would onlycontinue as long as the number of routes in the list of effective routesis less than a specified number. This would have the effect ofidentifying no more than a specified number of routes, which can bebeneficial to reduce the worst-case processing time for the EffectiveRoute Identification Phase, although this embodiment does pose a risk ofnot identifying the best route as an effective route. The specifiednumber of routes may be a fixed number, or a number calculated based onparameters related to processor utilization of the product schedulingcontroller 106.

The Route Ranking Phase will now be discussed in greater detail withreference to FIGS. 13A and 13B. The Route Ranking Phase comprises firstundergoing the Route Metric Generation Sub-Phase and subsequently theRoute Sorting Sub-Phase.

The Route Metric Generation Sub-Phase will now be discussed in greaterdetail. First, the product scheduling controller 106 can calculate aweighting factor (510) for each unit operation station group based onthe utilization of each unit operation station within the unit operationstation group, where unit operation station groups that have less unusedcapacity will yield larger weighting factor values. This weightingfactor enables better production optimization because it allowscalculations subsequently described to prioritize optimizing capacityutilization of the busiest unit operation stations.

For each route in the list of effective routes, the product schedulingcontroller 106 will perform the following calculations to identify aQueue Length (QL) metric, an Unused Unit Count (UC) metric, a NearlyStarved Unit Count (NSC) metric, a Vehicles Already Scheduled Count(VASC) metric, and a Non-Productive Time (NPT) metric. The QL metric isrelated to the sum of infeed queue lengths at each unit operationstation along the current effective route at the time this vehicle 24would arrive if this route is selected. The UC metric is related to thenumber of unit operation stations along the current effective route thatwill have been idle and starved for a specified period of time beforethis vehicle's 24 arrival if this route is selected. The NSC metric isrelated to the number of unit operation stations along the currenteffective route that will become idle if not for the selection andexecution of this route by this vehicle 24. The VASC metric is relatedto the number of previously scheduled vehicles 24 scheduled to in thefuture arrive at the unit operation stations along the current effectiveroute. The NPT metric is related to the time this vehicle 24 would spendtravelling or waiting at unit operation station infeed queues along thecurrent effective route. The product scheduling controller 106 caninitially set to zero each of a QL metric, a UC metric, an NSC metric, aVASC metric, and an NPT metric.

For each unit operating station along the current effective route, thefollowing calculations are performed to update the route's QL metric, UCmetric, NSC metric, VASC metric, and NPT metric. The product schedulingcontroller 106 can calculate a QL value (515) by multiplying theweighting factor with the infeed queue length at the time the vehicle 24is expected to arrive at the unit operation station. The QL value can beadded to the QL metric (520). The product scheduling controller 106 canthen calculate a UC value (525). If this unit operation station has noother vehicles 24 scheduled for operations during a specified period oftime immediately preceding the expected arrival of this vehicle 24 atthis unit operation station, the UC value is the weighting factor.Otherwise, the UC value is zero. The UC value can be added to the UCmetric (530). The product scheduling controller 106 can then calculate aNSC value (535). If this unit operation station will become idle if notfor the arrival of this vehicle and its ensuing associated operation,the NSC value is the weighting factor. Otherwise, the NSC value is zero.The NSC value can be added to the NSC metric (540). The productscheduling controller 106 can then calculate a VASC value (545) bymultiplying the weighting factor with the number of previously scheduledvehicles 24 scheduled to in the future arrive at the unit operationstation. The VASC value can be added to the VASC metric (550). Theproduct scheduling controller 106 can then calculate an NPT value (555)by multiplying the weighting factor with the sum of: 1) the travel timefrom an upstream interface point on the primary transport portion 76 tothis unit operation station, 2) the time the current vehicle is expectedwait in the infeed queue of this unit operation station, and 3) thetravel time from this unit operation station to a downstream interfacepoint on the primary transport portion 76. The NPT value can be added tothe NPT metric (560). When the QL metric, UC metric, NSC metric, VASCmetric, and NPT metric have all been calculated for all routes in thelist of effective routes, the Route Metric Generation Sub-Phase iscomplete and the product scheduling controller 106 begins the RouteSorting Sub-Phase.

Referring to FIG. 13B, the Route Sorting Sub-Phase will now be describedin greater detail. The Route Sorting Sub-Phase will compare the metricsgenerated during the Route Metric Generation Sub-Phase to identify thebest route for the current vehicle 24 from the list of effective routesidentified in the Effective Route Identification Phase. Each route inthe list of effective routes is compared to the other routes in the listof effective routes on the basis of the metrics generated during theRoute Metric Generation Sub-Phase. A route with a smaller QL metric is abetter route 585. If the QL metrics are identical, a route with a higherUC metric is a better route 595. If the QL and UC metrics are identical,a route with a higher NSC metric is a better route 600. If the QL, UC,and NSC metrics are identical, a route with a higher VASC metric is abetter route 605. If the QL, UC, NSC, and VASC metrics are identical, aroute with a lower NPT metric is a better route 610. If the QL, UC, NSC,VASC, and NPT metrics are identical, neither route is better than theother 615, so a route is arbitrarily selected.

Once the product scheduling controller 106 has identified the best routefrom the list of effective routes, the specifics of the route arecommunicated to the track system controller 108 so as to enable thetrack system controller 108 to cause the vehicle 24 to move as specifiedby the route and operate unit operation stations as specified by theroute.

It is to be appreciated that, on some occasions, the list of effectiveroutes 435 may be empty at the completion of the Effective RouteIdentification Phase. This may occur for numerous reasons, including butnot limited to: there are no outstanding production orders; one or moreunit operation stations required to contribute to a given product arenot available or not existent; infeed queues are planned to be full atone or more unit operation stations at times when proposed routes wouldhave a selected vehicle 24 arrive; there are otherwise no demand itemsresulting from the Demand Propagation phase associated with the unitoperation stations of the furthest upstream unit operation stationgroup; or the selected vehicle 24 is no compatible with any demand itemsassociated with the unit operation stations of the furthest upstreamunit operation station group. In such a situation, there is no effectiveroute available to be assigned to the selected vehicle 24 at the presenttime. The product scheduling controller 106 and the track systemcontroller 108 may be configured to handle a lack of effective routes ina variety of embodiments, some of which will now be discussed in greaterdetail, and which will hereafter be referred to as No Route AvailableEmbodiments.

In a first No Route Available Embodiment, the product schedulingcontroller 106 may be configured to assign no route to the selectedvehicle 24. In this first No Route Available Embodiment, the tracksystem controller 108 having no route associated with the selectedvehicle 24 will cause the vehicle 24 to remain stationary on the trackindefinitely. In this first No Route Available Embodiment, the productscheduling controller may periodically re-execute one or more of theroute assignment phases, either in a time-based manner, or based uponreceiving repeated route requests from the track system controller 108.During such re-execution of one or more route assignment phases, one ormore effective routes may be identified that were not identified duringprevious executions of one or more phases of the route assignment, dueto a variety of reasons including but not limited to: a new productionorder was provided to the product scheduling controller 106, a unitoperation station that was previously unavailable becomes available, orthe progress or lack of progress of other vehicles 24 along theirpreviously assigned routes has changed the expectation of the fullnessof infeed queues of one or more unit operation station.

In a second No Route Available Embodiment, the product schedulingcontroller 106 may be configured to create a route comprised solely ofexecuting no operations while visiting a virtual unit operation stationof each unit operation station group. Such a route would be communicatedto the track system controller 108 and would result in the track systemcontroller 108 routing the vehicle to each virtual unit operationstation before the vehicle 24 could again become eligible to be selectedfor route assignment. In a common example of this embodiment, theselected vehicle 24 would be routed along the primary transport portionin a continuously moving manner. In this way, unlike the first No RouteAvailable Embodiment, the selected vehicle 24 would not continuouslyobstruct the movement of other vehicles 24, and thus would notcontinuously prevent the system from producing products when there areno effective routes available for a particular vehicle 24 at aparticular time. In one variation of the second No Route AvailableEmbodiment, the product scheduling controller 106 may be configured tocreate a route involving visiting only one or a subset of virtual unitoperation stations. In this variation, the virtual unit operationstation or virtual unit operation stations may exist only to supportsuch route assignments in the event of there being no effective routesavailable, such that the virtual unit operation station or virtual unitoperation stations do not belong to a unit operation station group andcannot be selected as part of an effective route. This variation isuseful when it would be advantageous to define a specific route for allvehicles 24 when they are selected for route assignment, but nocompatible effective routes exist. In either variation of the second NoRoute Available Embodiment, the route that is generated by the productscheduling controller 106 is hereafter referred to as a Bypass Route.

A third No Route Available Embodiment involves the product schedulingcontroller 106 being configured exactly as described in the second NoRoute Available Embodiment. In this third No Route Available Embodiment,the track scheduling controller 108 identifies whether a route assignedby the product scheduling controller 106 is an effective route or aBypass Route. If the assigned route is a Bypass Route, the track systemcontroller 108 will make a determination whether to direct the vehicle24 as described by the specific Bypass Route, or whether to direct thevehicle 24 to a holding area. This determination may be made in avariety of ways, including but not limited to: there having beenimmediately previously assigned a specified number of consecutive routesthat were all Bypass Routes, there having been assigned immediatelypreviously assigned to other vehicles 24 similar to the selected vehicle24 a specified number of consecutive routes that were all Bypass Routes,the availability of a holding area, or configuration parametersdictating the eligibility for the selected 24 or vehicles like theselected vehicle 24 for being routed to a holding area. If the tracksystem controller 108 has determined that the selected vehicle 24 shouldbe routed to a holding area, the track system controller 108 will nextselect a holding area. Eligible holding areas may include portions oftrack designated as holding areas, or sections of track serving unitoperation stations that are currently not available. Using tracksections associated with unavailable unit operation stations isadvantageous to allow holding areas to be available on the track,without requiring the cost and physical space of installing dedicatedholding areas. In the case of sections of track serving unit operationstations that are currently not available serving as holding area, theremay be a configuration parameter in the track scheduling controller 108associated with the unit operation station specifying a maximum numberof vehicles that may be directed to that unit operation station when theassociated track section is being used as a holding area. In this way,if the associated configuration parameter is set to 0, a unit operationstation may be configured to be ineligible to act as a holding area,even when the unit operation station is unavailable. When a vehicle 24is directed to a holding area by the track scheduling controller 108,the track scheduling controller 108 will direct the vehicle 24 to leavethe holding area after a specified amount of time so that it may againbecome eligible for selection to be assigned a route. Such specifiedamount of time may be a fixed time, a fixed time dependant on thevehicle 24 or a configuration for vehicles similar to the particularvehicle 24, a fixed time related to the selected holding area, acalculated time based on how many immediately previously assigned routeswere Bypass Routes, a calculated time based on how many immediatelypreviously assigned routes to vehicles similar to the specific vehicle24 were Bypass Routes, determined by other means, or a combinationthereof. In one particularly advantageous application of the third NoRoute Available Embodiment, the specified time is calculated so as toincrease with each consecutive Bypass Route assigned to vehicles similarto the selected vehicle 24. For example, a first vehicle 24 assigned aBypass Route may be directed to a holding area for 30 seconds, a secondvehicle 24 similar to the first vehicle 24 assigned a Bypass Route maybe directed to a holding area for 60 seconds, a third vehicle 24 similarto the first vehicle 24 assigned a Bypass Route may be directed to aholding area for 90 seconds, and so forth, up to a maximum of 300seconds. This particularly advantageous application allows the track tobe self-optimizing in its use of vehicles, particularly when there aredifferent types of vehicles 24 on the same track. For example, ifvehicles of a specific type are not useful to produce the productsdescribed by currently outstanding production orders, those vehicleswill automatically be directed to a holding area without operatorintervention. This is advantageous to significantly reduce the extent towhich vehicles 24 that are not currently engaged in producing a productobstruct vehicles that are engaged in producing products. Furthermore,in the same example, if a new production order would make use of thepreviously non-productive vehicles, the vehicles will automaticallybecome eligible for route assignment within minutes, again withoutrequiring operator intervention.

Numerous alternative embodiments of the Route Sorting Sub-Phase arepossible. One alternative embodiment of the Route Sorting Sub-Phasecould compute an overall route score for each route as the sum of theproducts of some or all of the QL, UC, NSC, VASC, and NPT metrics and aweighting factor for each metric. This embodiment would take each metricinto account to degrees alterable by modifying the weighting factorassociated with each metric.

So as to determine the best route for each vehicle, the routedetermination may consider configurations for expected time required totravel along the track or expected time required to complete operations.When the track system controller observes completion of a vehicle'smovement along a portion of the track, it may automatically cause anupdate to a configuration for expected time required to travel alongthat portion of the track, or a configuration associated with the degreeof variability in said time, for example a standard deviation of a setof said times observed in the past. Likewise, when the track systemcontroller observes completion of an operation, it may automaticallycause an update to a configuration for the expected time required forthat operation as that unit operation station, or a configurationassociated with the degree of variability in said time, for example astandard deviation of a set of said times observed in the past. In thismanner, the determination of a route can be self-optimizing, such thatthe route determination step becomes more effective with each usewithout requiring manual effort, and adapts to changes in trackperformance or unit operation station performance without manual effort.

In some embodiments, the ongoing application of the invention describedherein may necessitate performing periodic maintenance tasks on thevehicles 24, or components situated thereon or otherwise coupledthereto. Such maintenance tasks may include, but not be limited to,inspecting components for damage, verifying all required components arepresent, cleaning components, testing seals for leaks, and the like. Toalleviate the burden of manually tracking when each vehicle is due fordifferent types of maintenance tasks, the track scheduling controller108 may be configured with parameters describing maintenance tasks. Theparameters may comprise a description of the task, location where thetask is to be performed, and a frequency at which the task must beconducted on each vehicle. The frequency may be described as a time, adistance of travel for the vehicle, a number of products produced by thevehicle, or another metric or calculation, or a combination thereof. Theparameters may furthermore specify which types of vehicles 24 the taskis applicable to. Using such parameters, after the track schedulingcontroller 108 selects a vehicle to be assigned a route, the trackscheduling controller 108 may be configured to determine if one or moremaintenance tasks are due for the selected vehicle 24 before requestinga route from the product scheduling controller 106. If the trackscheduling controller 108 is thusly configured and determines that theselected vehicle 24 is currently due for one or more maintenance tasks,the track scheduling controller may direct the vehicle 24 to theappropriate location so as to have the maintenance performed, ratherthan requesting a route assignment for the vehicle from the productscheduling controller. Upon the arrival of a vehicle 24 at a locationspecified for maintenance, the track scheduling controller 108 mayindicate to an operator or automated equipment the nature of themaintenance task or tasks to be performed on this vehicle. In this way,an automated system to schedule time, distance, or condition-basedmaintenance on vehicles may be simply implemented.

In other embodiments, it may be desirable to have the priority ofproduction based on the desired date of delivery of the finished productto a customer or consumer.

Test Methods

The degree of mixing achieved by in situ mixing methods, or other mixingmethods, can be determined by a digital image processing method anddevice for holistic evaluation of subtle irregularities in a digitalimage of a non-homogeneously mixed liquid product as described in PCTPatent Application Serial No. CN2017/087539 (P&G Case AA 1232F). Thismethod comprises the following steps:

1. Extracting an area of interest from a digital image to be analyzed byexcluding background areas. Specifically, when the digital image is theimage of a transparent or translucent bottle that is partially filled bya liquid mixture, only the section containing the liquid mixture shouldbe extracted, while the background areas outside of the bottle as wellas the section of the bottle that does not contain the liquid mixtureneed to be excluded.

2. Conducting scale space analysis of the extracted area of interest todetect points of interest, i.e., extrema that each represents a localmaximum or minimum, and to provide at least an intensity value and asize or scale for each point of interest. In the context of liquidmixtures, any of such points of interest with a sufficiently highintensity and/or a sufficiently large size is indicative of asignificant local irregularity, i.e., evidence of poor mixing.Therefore, by selecting extrema having intensities and/or scales thatare above a minimal threshold value, areas of significant localirregularities indicative of poor mixing can be readily and effectivelydetected.

3. Calculating a total irregularity score by summing up contributionsfrom all local irregularities so detected. In the context of liquidmixtures, such a total irregularity score functions as a singlequantitative measure for how good the mixing is, irrespective of colorand luminosity variations in the liquid mixtures. This singlequantitative measure allows objective comparison across liquid mixturesof different colors under very different luminosity conditions.

The foregoing description of embodiments and examples of the disclosurehas been presented for purposes of illustration and description. It isnot intended to be exhaustive or to limit the disclosure to the formsdescribed. Numerous modifications are possible in light of the aboveteachings. Some of those modifications have been discussed and otherswill be understood by those skilled in the art. The embodiments werechosen and described in order to best illustrate the principles of thedisclosure and various embodiments as are suited to the particular usecontemplated. The scope of the disclosure is, of course, not limited tothe examples or embodiments set forth herein, but can be employed in anynumber of applications and equivalent devices by those of ordinary skillin the art. Rather it is hereby intended the scope of the invention bedefined by the claims appended hereto. Also, for any methods claimedand/or described, regardless of whether the method is described inconjunction with a flow diagram, it should be understood that unlessotherwise specified or required by context, any explicit or implicitordering of steps performed in the execution of a method does not implythat those steps must be performed in the order presented and may beperformed in a different order or in parallel.

The dimensions and/or values disclosed herein are not to be understoodas being strictly limited to the exact numerical dimensions and/orvalues recited. Instead, unless otherwise specified, each such dimensionand/or value is intended to mean the recited dimension and/or value anda functionally equivalent range surrounding that dimension and/or value.For example, a dimension disclosed as “40 mm” is intended to mean “about40 mm”.

It should be understood that every maximum numerical limitation giventhroughout this specification includes every lower numerical limitation,as if such lower numerical limitations were expressly written herein.Every minimum numerical limitation given throughout this specificationwill include every higher numerical limitation, as if such highernumerical limitations were expressly written herein. Every numericalrange given throughout this specification will include every narrowernumerical range that falls within such broader numerical range, as ifsuch narrower numerical ranges were all expressly written herein.

Every document cited herein, including any cross referenced or relatedpatent or application is hereby incorporated herein by reference in itsentirety unless expressly excluded or otherwise limited. The citation ofany document is not an admission that it is prior art with respect toany invention disclosed or claimed herein or that it alone, or in anycombination with any other reference or references, teaches, suggests ordiscloses any such invention. Further, to the extent that any meaning ordefinition of a term in this document conflicts with any meaning ordefinition of the same term in a document incorporated by reference, themeaning or definition assigned to that term in this document shallgovern.

While particular embodiments of the present invention have beenillustrated and described, it would be obvious to those skilled in theart that various other changes and modifications can be made withoutdeparting from the spirit and scope of the invention. It is thereforeintended to cover in the appended claims all such changes andmodifications that are within the scope of this invention.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for simultaneously producing differentproducts on a single production line, said method comprising the stepsof: (a) providing a track system comprising a track on which vehiclesare propellable, wherein at least some of said vehicles areindependently routable, and wherein a plurality of unit operationsstations are disposed along the track system; (b) providing a pluralityof articles, said articles comprising a first article and a secondarticle, said first and second articles comprising components of theproducts to be produced; (c) providing a plurality of vehicles; (d)loading said first article on a vehicle to form an article-loadedvehicle; (e) loading said second article on a vehicle to form anarticle-loaded vehicle; and (f) simultaneously sending one of saidarticle-loaded vehicles to a unit operation station where a step in theproduction of a product is performed and another one of saidarticle-loaded vehicles to a unit operation station where a step in theproduction of a different product is performed.
 2. The method of claim 1wherein the track system comprises: a primary transport portion thatdefines a primary path comprised of track that forms a closed loop thatis configured to permit at least one article-loaded vehicle to travel ina holding pattern; at least one secondary transport portion that extendsfrom the primary transport portion and defines a secondary pathcomprised of track that intersects the primary path at an ingresslocation and an egress location; and said method further comprisesrecirculating at least one article-loaded vehicles in a holding patternon said primary loop.
 3. A method for producing different fluentproducts according to claim 1 wherein: in step (a) said unit operationstations comprise at least two filling unit operation stations; in step(b) said articles comprise empty containers, said containers comprisinga first container and a second container; in step (d) loading said firstarticle on a vehicle comprises loading said first empty container on avehicle to form a container-loaded vehicle; in step (e) loading saidsecond article on a vehicle comprises loading said second emptycontainer on a vehicle to form a container-loaded vehicle; and step (f)comprises simultaneously sending one of said container-loaded vehiclesto a filling unit operation station where a fluent product is dispensedinto said first container and another one of said container-loadedvehicles to a filling unit operation station where a different fluentproduct is dispensed into said second container.
 4. A method forproducing different assembled products according to claim 1 wherein saidunit operation stations perform a step in the assembly of a product.